President Donald Trump went after the New York Times accusing it of publishing a ‘hit piece’ after the paper released an exhaustive analysis of the millions he received from his father and said the Trump children dodged hundreds of millions in taxes.
The story, published Tuesday, detailed efforts to transfer business ownership to children, reduce Fred Trump’s ownership stake to claim mark-downs in value, and secure property assessments that were millions of dollars below what apartment complexes were worth.
It also reveals Trump was earning $200,000 per month as a three year old and was a millionaire by age eight – contradicting Trump’s business narrative that he built his empire with only a $1 million loan from his dad.
Trump also called the story ‘very old, boring and often told.’
President Donald Trump trashed a New York Times account of decades of financial transfers his father Fred made to his children ‘very old, boring and often told’
But in his Twitter attack Wednesday, Trump brought up a financial principle called the ‘time value of money’ which states that a dollar now is worth more than one in the future, since it can be invested or can earn interest.
‘The Failing New York Times did something I have never seen done before. They used the concept of ‘time value of money’ in doing a very old, boring and often told hit piece on me,’ Trump said.
The Times says its 15,000 word story was based on a review of 100,000 documents it obtained. Among them were Fred Trump’s tax returns. The president has refused to release his own, as is the custom going back decades.
Then Trump engaged in a bit of is own math. ‘Added up, this means that 97% of their stories on me are bad. Never recovered from bad election call!’ he added.
Fred Trump, Donald Trump and Mary Anne TrumpDonald Trump with mother and father, New York, USA – 1992
SOME DAY THIS WILL ALL BE YOURS: Donald Trump and father Fred C. Trump on the roof of a Trump Village building in Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York
Fred Trump, Donald Trump and Mary Anne TrumpDonald Trump with mother and father, New York, USA – 1992
A trove of documents including Fred Trump’s tax returns show countless efforts to enrich Donald Trump and set him up to be the successful businessman and public figure and politician that he became.
Many of the transfers were made in secret, often in advantageous ways that saved Trump and his siblings hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a deeply reported New York Times analysis.
The story also references a sham corporation set up in 1982 called All County Building Supply & Maintenance, whose main purpose as reported appears to be to have marked up the actual cost of purchases, which allowed the landlords to argue for rent increases and avoid gift taxes.
Within minutes of its publication New York State tax authorities said they would investigate.
Trump sketched a different kind of story on the campaign trail. ‘My father gave me a very small loan in 1975, and I built it into a company that’s worth many, many billions of dollars,’ Trump said.
SOME DAY THIS WILL ALL BE YOURS: Donald Trump and father Fred C. Trump on the roof of a Trump Village building in Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York
EVERY KID GETS AN ALLOWANCE: Trump even received coin laundry revenue from apartment buildings that had been built by his father
YOU’RE HIRED! Trump earned $200,000 a year at age three, and was a millionaire by eight
The trove of documents includes secret tax and bank documents, meaning their leak will set off an intense investigation inside the Trump world for who committed such a daring breach of security, and potentially betrayal – and will be fodder to Democrats demanding Trump release his tax returns.
In just once example, sourced to the 1995 tax return of Fred Trump, a successful developer of large-scale housing construction projects, Donald Trump and his sibling claimed 25 apartment complexes with 6,988 apartments were worth only $41 million. Less than a decade later, in 2004, banks valued them at $900 million.
At the tender age of three, Trump was earning $200,000 a year in 2018 dollars from his dad’s business empire, becoming a millionaire by age 8, according to the report.
By the time he graduated college – Wharton as Trump likes to point out – Trump was getting $1 million a year in today’s dollars – an amount that would jump to $5 million a year by the time he hit his 40s.
Trump’s attack adds to one Tuesday night by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.
Her attack also took on the paper in personal terms.
The Times ‘can rarely find anything positive’ to say about Trump,’ she said. But her statement did not seek to rebut specific allegations such as the avoidance of hundreds of millions in gift taxes.
‘Fred Trump has been gone for nearly twenty years and it’s sad to witness this misleading attack against the Trump family by the failing New York Times. Many decades ago the IRS reviewed and signed off on these transactions,’ she said.
‘The New York Times’ and other media outlets’ credibility with the American people is at an all time low because they are consumed with attacking the president and his family 24/7 instead of reporting the news,’ Sanders said.
In just some of the other revelations:
- Trump collected laundry revenue from apartment buildings in his dad’s portfolio;
- His share was $177 million when the Fred Trump empire was sold off in 2004;
- Fred Trump transferred eight buildings with 1,032 apartment units to his kids;
- Fred and Mary Trump transferred more than $1 billion in current values in wealth to their kids, the Times found, which would have brought $550 million in taxes if they paid the full 55 per cent gift and inheritance tax at the time
- Instead they paid a total tax of just $52.2 million;
- Fred Trump gave his son three trust funds;
- In 1962 Fred transferred land in Queens to his children, then build an apartment building there and gave them the revenues and ownership;
- Seven apartment buildings were transferred to children with no apparent gift taxes;
- Donald Trump received air conditioner rental income from units in building his father and the government financed for seniors in East Orange, New Jersey – which Trump called a ‘philanthropy’;
- Trump drew a salary from his dad into the 1980s of $260,000 in today’s dollars; and
- Trump borrowed more than $2 million in 1979 from Fred Trump and his companies, according to New Jersey casino records.