How many NY real estate families are stealing from the state in the same way Fred Trump did?

[ProfessorPlum]

I wouldn't be surprised that NYC, which needs money to fix its subway system, is impoverished by this same set of tax scams. Self-reporting your own properties' value? If we just enforced the laws already on the books (except THIS time, catch RICH lawbreakers), the rest of us wouldn't have to be effectively stolen from to pay for things the rich should be paying.

[duforsure]

1. How long before trump starts going after others

For exposing all this , then suggesting tax fraud and money laundering is acceptable and then normalized like sexual abuse against women has been done.

[ProfessorPlum]

2. probably tomorrow

[greymattermom]

3. People who own houses don't get to do this.

How long before suburban whites in Westchester County want to self report the value of their homes?

[ProfessorGAC]

5. My House Is Worth A Buck And A Half

Because is say so. Now lower my tax bill to to 6 cents a year.

I don't that's going to work for me. Not sure why.

[ProfessorPlum]

10. Right? Who thought of this scam?

Even rental properties, etc. have nominal values for tax purposes. How far off can they be reported from that?

Maddening.

[Cicada]

4. For those who get bank loans not many, I think

Trumps are unusual in that they don’t get many bank loans. A bank will probably prefer financial statements prepared by a real cpa firm, not an in house guy.They probably insist on it. A real cpa firm wont permit massive tax fraud. And if I were a billionaire I wouldnt risk jail for anything. I knew a guy who cofounded an insurance company as a device to legally minimize profits. Buffet has done that. Very savvy. He told me that you should be extremely scrupulous in reporting income. You should never ever come close to cheating on that. Because you could go to jail. But on deductions? He said he would never ever get the wrong amount. But categorizing a deduction as one kind of thing rather than another kind of thing offered opportunity to alter tax substantially without risk if prosecution.

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Not Following That

How does misrepresenting a deduction on a document for which you sign as true under risk of perjury ever allow such things without risk of prosecution?

[Cicada]

7. Unreported income sets IRS hair on fire, arguments on definitions not so much

I happen to remember an example because I thought it up for this person. I am old enough that software back then was new. His insurance company had developed software at a cost of several million dollars. Now there are rules specifically for software but not back then. There was back then an investment tax credit of ten percent for tangible personal property. Tangible means touchable. I suggested he put the software into a device. Then we took the ten percent ITC for the millions of dollars. Was it tangible or was it intangible put into something tangible? I didn’t really know. But if the IRS disagreed it wasn’t a crime, it was an honest difference if opinion. In many situations there is vagueness as to which category is the correct category. Is something a building component, deductible over 39 years or a fixture deductible over 7? Is it part of domestic production activity or something else? Intangible drilling cost or tangible?

[ProfessorGAC]

11. Ok, That I Get

Still seems like it's skirting the edges and likely a risk i wouldn't take.

[HAB911]

8. You can bet on the Kushners

[Anon-C]

9. Kick and Red.

[delisen]

12. I think the Developers and real estate tax games are responsible

for most of our economic woes

Legislators/Banks//Developers/Real Estate Investors vs the rest of us

[RobinA]

13. Probably All Of Them

The thing the struck me about the NYT report, and I don't even pretend to really understand this stuff, is that it seemed to me that most of the malfeasance was quite mundane until it added up. No big grand schemes, just a whole lot of misrepresentations that got bigger and bigger as his pile got bigger. No big drama. Hey, if you can transfer assets to your grown kids to avoid inheritance, why not start when they are 3. Call property what it isn't really so you get lower taxes, undervalue stuff. Fred started out building housing for regular people when a lot of other people were doing the same. Nothing to see here.