I read this hole report today, and although I suppose I'm not surprised that he's been evading taxes (especially after reading this classic a couple of years ago: Trump received $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s ), I do find it somewhat surprising how crude his methods seem to be? Courts have held that to treat residences as businesses for tax purposes, owners must show that they have “an actual and honest objective of making a profit,” typically by making substantial efforts to rent the property and eventually generating income. [...] In 2014, Eric Trump told Forbes that “this is really our compound.” I mean, how easy is it to get away with tax evasion in the US? This is some schoolyard shit! From my point of view, it's clear that he has done something illegal, for example: And Mr. Trump does appear to have received something. When the casino bankruptcy concluded, he got 5 percent of the stock in the new company. And judging by the brazenness of the two examples I highlighted, there must be more, and lots of it. However, I have the impression that if you're rich enough in the US, you can get away with anything, if only by dragging out court battles. What's your feeling on this? Do you think there's any chance at all that Trump will end up in jail? Or at the very least lose his fortune? I have an ominous feeling that when the chips fall, it'll turn out that everything he did was legal due to various loopholes his tax lawyers found.The tax records reveal another way Seven Springs has generated substantial tax savings. In 2014, Mr. Trump classified the estate as an investment property, as distinct from a personal residence. Since then, he has written off $2.2 million in property taxes as a business expense [...].
A partner who walks away from a business with nothing — what tax laws refer to as abandonment — can suddenly declare all the losses on the business that could not be used in prior years. But there are a few catches, including this: Abandonment is essentially an all-or-nothing proposition. If the I.R.S. learns that the owner received anything of value, the allowable losses are reduced to just $3,000 a year.