Documents show stark differences in how Trump’s businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two NYC buildings -- making them appear more profitable to a lender and less profitable to officials who set the buildings’ property tax.
propublica.org/article/trump-…
propublica.org/article/trump-…
"'The discrepancies are “versions of fraud,' said Nancy Wallace, a professor of finance and real estate at the Haas School of Business at the University of California-Berkeley. 'This kind of stuff is not OK.'"
New York City’s property tax forms state that the person signing them “affirms the truth of the statements made” and that “false filings are subject to all applicable civil and criminal penalties.”
The Trump Organization has been at this game for a long time. When I interviewed Trump's CFO, Allen Weisselberg, in 2005 for "TrumpNation," he told me that Trump valued 40 Wall Street at $400 million -- at a time when it was assessed for property tax purposes at only $90 million
Playing with assessments is an old pastime with the Trumps. In the 1950s, Fred Trump was hauled before a Congressional hearing about abuses in federally-backed housing projects -- which Fred built his fortune on. He revealed during his testimony that...
...he assessed the costs associated with building one project, Beach Haven, at inflated rates and then held on to the extra, taxpayer-funded loans the government provided him. The government banned Fred from FHA-funded projects after that. But...
...Fred was accused of similar abuses in the 1960s by New York State authorities in connection with another massive, publicly-funded project: Trump Village. After another round of hearings, Fred wasn't charged with wrongdoing but he never built another publicly-financed project.
