Donald Trump loves to twist the facts the way they suit him. He touted himself as a private citizen to argue that he had some kind of First Amendment right to incite the riot at the Capitol, because that was to his advantage at the moment. The rest of the time, however, he claims to be the true government in exile, as opposed to a defeated one-term president, because that suits his purpose.
Likewise, Trump has kept two sets of financial records over the years, telling loan officers one thing about the value of his properties and tax officials something else altogether. That is what Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance is about to scrutinize. That distant clanking sound you hear is the prison gate banging shut. Bear in mind, tax evasion was how they got Al Capone. Reuters:
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has subpoenaed a New York City property tax agency as part of a criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s company, the agency confirmed on Friday, suggesting prosecutors are examining the former president’s efforts to reduce his commercial real-estate taxes for possible evidence of fraud. […]
Along with information already subpoenaed from creditors, the tax agency documents would help investigators determine whether Trump’s business inflated the value of his properties to secure favorable terms on loans while deflating those values to lower tax bills for those same properties. […]
The subpoena likely would compel the agency to provide detailed income and expense statements the Trump Organization would have filed as part of an effort to lower tax assessments on some of its commercial properties, according to people familiar with the commission’s operations. Trump’s holdings include Trump Tower and Trump Plaza.
Trump’s income and expense statements should be something. This is a man who paid $750 in federal income tax in 2017, you may recall. There are fantasy writers who can’t mold reality into any more imaginative forms than Trump and his accountants can spin numbers, depending upon who’s reading them and the desired outcome.
Maybe he and Leona (“Taxes are for little people”) Hemsley were born out of some twisted Joseph Mengele attempt at creating the world’s first test tube babies.
I too thought they are cut from the same cloth.
Now THAT’s some juxtaposition of random thoughts, Denis. I like it!
OH Yeah…. GET HIM …
Don the Con and his crooked attys. at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP and his crooked accountants at Mazars USA have already shredded many of the docs that incriminate him and his orgs. Luckily The NY Times did a tremendous years long investigation that uncovered all kinds of docs, witnesses and evidence: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-wealth-fred-trump.html; and Michael Cohen knows all the correct rocks to turn over, the interrogatory and deposition questions to ask and the players involved. Plus copies of all NY State tax returns and Federal Tax returns and schedules have not been destroyed. Even so, it’ll be a race against time as NY State’s statute of limitation requires criminal charges to be filed within 3-6 years of filing taxes depending upon the criminal violation. However, the statute of limitations does not apply to civil tax penalties if Trumpelthinskin filed a false or fraudulent return with intent to evade tax – a higher bar to hurdle, but certainly possible with enough evidence.
Every time I see that $750, smoke starts to come out my ears again. I barely make enough to get by and I pay a lot more than that.