A new investigation published by The New York Times dives into Donald Trump's tax records and exposes some interesting facts. The investigation claims that Trump earned $413 million from his father's real estate empire by dodging taxes in the 90's. Keep in mind, this is the same man who refused to show the public his earnings and taxes when he entered office. Trump's father, Fred C. Trump, is no stranger to investigations himself. He was investigated in 1954 for profiteering off of public contracts. The Times claims they dug through a "vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records," and found that "(Donald) 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."
A majority of that money came from helping his parents dodge taxes. For example, The Times found that Trump and his siblings helped set up a "sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents." Records also show that Trump helped his father orchestrate several illegal tax deductions. The scheming doesn't end there. More records show that Trump helped create a strategy that undervalued his parent's properties for hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns. In turn, when the properties were transferred to Trump and his siblings, they avoided hundreds of millions in taxes themselves.
The investigation continued on to state that Trump's parents left their children with over $1 billion, which should have been taxed "at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate then imposed on gifts and inheritances." Instead, Trump and his siblings avoided paying the majority of that tax, and only coughed up $52.2 million, or about 5%.
A lawyer for Trump, Charles J. Harder, provided a statement in regards to The Times' investigation. “The New York Times’s allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100 percent false, and highly defamatory,” Mr. Harder responded. “There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. The facts upon which The Times bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate.”
