Spoiler alert: Donald "Rump" Trump is a fraud and a cheat.
"The New York Times" pulls back the curtain on the Trump crime family's finances and pops some hard- to- die myths about "Donald Trump, self- made financial genius:"
President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents, an investigation by The New York Times has found.
Mr. Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, the legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help.
But The Times’s investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.
Much of this money came to Mr. Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes. He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents, records and interviews show. Records indicate that Mr. Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more. He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings. (our emphasis)Unfortunately, the statute of limitations on criminal tax fraud has long expired for the activities detailed in the Times article. Federal civil tax penalties may still apply -- if the Trump IRS had the resources or cared to look into past tax returns. State civil tax penalties may also accrue. But, does anyone seriously believe these Trump crime family fraudsters haven't been using the same corrupt business model right up until this moment, and that it's all there in the tax returns he's refused to release? He's already crowed about how smart he is for not paying any Federal income tax, after all.
Maybe the New York State, SDNY and Special Counsel investigations are already on it, but this is another good reason to elect a Democratic House with subpoena power over Rump's personal and corporate tax returns.
UPDATE: New York State's tax agency is now considering an investigation into the allegations raised in the article.
