New Trump Investigations Allege NY Golf Club Tax Scheme
Donald Trump has a history of inflating the value of his properties when he sells them, while devaluing them when it comes time to pay taxes. Now a small town in New York finds itself at the center of the latest investigation into Trump’s financial misdeeds in connection with his Trump National Golf Club in Westchester.
Town records have the property valued at $15 million, but Trump’s company has tried to list its value much lower every year, despite him declaring on White House financial disclosures that the property was worth more than $50 million.
Writing for The Daily Beast, Jose Pagliery reports that Federal, state, and local investigators are each looking into those fluctuating valuations, and both New York Attorney General Letitia James and Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah have subpoenaed records from the Ossining town clerk’s office.
The golf course's general manager signed papers valuing the property at $7.5 million on July 14, 2017—the very same day Trump signed official govt disclosures claiming the business was actually worth more than $50 million.https://t.co/UsefEOJD11
— 𝙅𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙋𝙖𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙚𝙧𝙮 (@Jose_Pagliery) December 15, 2021
The Daily Beast obtained copies of the official complaints the Trump Organization filed against the town as it attempted to reduce its tax burden, including one challenge that valued the property at $7.5 million, less than half the town’s assessed value of $15.1 million. “At least one of them is false,” former prosecutor John Moscow, who worked 33 years at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, told writer Pagliery. “This is a relatively clean way to prove these people lie to evade taxes and push the tax burden on honest taxpayers.”
Trump yet again trying to evade property taxes on his Trump National Golf Club Westchester, says it is only worth $1.5 MILLION. A golf course with 140 acres… yeah right. He has filed a lawsuit against the city of Ossining. The city says the property is valued at $15.1 MILLION.
— NorthCountryMan (@NCMmnUSA) December 10, 2021
The report goes on to reveal that Donald Trump Jr. signed papers in 2018 claiming the golf club’s value had dropped by $1 million, although his father continued to value the property at more than $50 million in forms submitted to the Office of Government Ethics, and Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg signed off on that $6.5 million valuation in 2019 and 2020.
FRAUD – in one year, Trumps tax bill Westchester valued the Trump National Golf course in at $15 mil, yet the Trump Organization claimed it was worth only $1.4 mil. Later that year, on federal disclosure form filed while he was president, Trump said it was worth $50 million.
— ObeseTurtle (@ObeseTurtle01) November 23, 2021
Read the full profile at The Daily Beast.