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Officials from New York City announced Thursday that they had joined state control authorities to determine whether President Trump and his family were underpaying taxes on the empire. real estate of his father for several decades.
The announcement was made in response to a survey published this week in the New York Times, which showed how Trump had been involved in dubious tax schemes in the 1990s, including flagrant fraud, which had significantly increased the fortune of his parents.
"We are just starting to look at the information," said Dean Fuleihan, the city's first deputy mayor.
One type of tax that the city will consider is the tax on real estate transfers. Officials said the Trump family's extremely low valuations of buildings passed from Fred Trump to his children through trusts could have resulted in underpaid transfer taxes.
The Times reported that, through several aggressive and potentially illegal maneuvers, the Trumps claimed that 25 apartment complexes transferred to Donald Trump and his brothers and sisters by their father accounted for only 41.4 million dollars. The Trumps have sold these buildings in a decade more than 16 times that amount.
Fuleihan said the city would also consider whether another tax avoidance scheme by Trump and his brothers and sisters meant that Fred Trump's empire was underpaying property taxes.
This maneuver involved a company, created by the Trump family in 1992, called All County Building Supply & Maintenance. The whole county has existed largely on paper, the Times found. His job, as it was, was to add 20% or more to the cost of goods and services purchased by Fred Trump. The capitalized amount was shared between Donald Trump and his brothers and sisters, essentially a gift from their father who avoided the 55% tax on donations at the time.
Fuleihan said the project described by the Times would have artificially reduced the profitability of Fred Trump's buildings. And since municipal property taxes on rental properties are based in part on the profits reported by homeowners, All County would have had the effect of reducing the property tax burden.
Mr Fuleihan said the city and state agencies were cooperating with this effort. The State Department of Taxes and Finance announced Wednesday that it "was pursuing all the investigative leads".
Another public body is investigating whether rents for Fred Trump's rent-regulated apartments have seen their rent increase unduly, as Trumps used the county's stuffed bills to ask for rent increases, as noted by Times. State regulation allows owners of rent-regulated properties to request increases to recover the "real and verified cost" of certain building improvements, said Freeman Klopott, spokesperson for the Housing and Housing Division. renewal of the community.
The agency can refer to the state Attorney General the cases of landlords convicted of false receipts.
Meanwhile, a growing number of congressional Democrats have cited this article in their statement of reiteration of their long-standing demands to Mr. Trump to release his tax returns, which he firmly refused to do, breaking with four decades of practice of previous presidents.
And Ron Wyden, Democratic Senator from Oregon and a senior member of the Finance Committee, asked the I.R.S. Wednesday to open an investigation on the findings of the Times. "It is imperative that I.R.S. thoroughly investigate these allegations and prosecute any violations of the law, "Wyden said in a statement.
A spokesman for the I.R.S. said that the agency did not want to say if it was taking action in response to the Times investigation.
Some of Trumps' tax evasion maneuvers discovered by the Times deserved to be considered potential crimes, former prosecutors said, but the statute of limitations on such charges has long passed.
Investigations will examine whether civil penalties and bills for back taxes are justified. City officials said interest and penalties of up to 25% could be added to all outstanding taxes.
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