It's OFFICIAL - Weisellberg and trump organization HAVE been indicted. No rumor or speculation....

[George II]

Trump Organization and Top Executive Are Indicted in Tax Investigation

The former president’s family business and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, are expected to appear in court on Thursday.

A grand jury in Manhattan has indicted Donald J. Trump’s family business, the Trump Organization, and one of its top executives in connection with a tax investigation into fringe benefits handed out at the company, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

The specific charges against the company and its chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, were not immediately clear. The indictment was expected to be unsealed Thursday afternoon after Mr. Weisselberg and lawyers for the Trump Organization appear in court.

But prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office have been examining bonuses and luxury perks that Mr. Weisselberg received — including an apartment in Manhattan, leased Mercedes-Benz cars and private school tuition for at least one of his grandchildren — and whether taxes should have been paid on those benefits.

The indictment is a major development in the investigation led by the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., who has been conducting a sweeping inquiry into Mr. Trump and his business dealings along with the New York State attorney general, Letitia James.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/nyregion/trump-organization-cfo-allen-weisselberg.html?smid=tw-share

[Blue Owl]

1. It's InDependsDunce Day for The Slobfather

[img][/img]

[onecaliberal]

3. Sloppy jalopy.

[Stuart G]

4. Couldn't happen to a bigger, more stupid, more evil ....ASS**LE...

[Lovie777]

2. And I'm pretty sure there will be more indictments. . ...

[triron]

8. There better be!

Who is the kingpin here anyway? Not Weisselberg.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

14. Why are you sure? IOW, make my day :)

[Chainfire]

5. Folks, don't get my hopes up! ;)

I would think that Weisselberg would be a flight risk! Lock him up! Let him spend a couple of nights in the general population of the City lock-up with drug dealers, petty thieves and drunk drivers and see if he still wants to be a martyr for Trump.

Yea, I fantasize a bit!

[Walleye]

6. Rikers island for Weisselberg

[greenjar_01]

13. He'll bond out without even seeing the inside of a holding cell

DAs office to courtroom to bond payment and home.

[lame54]

7. I won't be happy till...

I see Jr. drunk on toilet wine

[FarPoint]

9. Hahahahahaha

OMG I love that line! You made my night...

[triron]

10. Welcome sight.

[Takket]

11. i hope the charges are more serious than that...

Weasel-berg getting some bonuses he didn't pay taxes on isn't going to amount to much. hopefully they are using that to flip him. i was expecting charges along the lines of falsifying loan documents to overvalue property value while simultaneously undervaluing the same properties to pay less taxes, which is the drumpf grift i thought they were investigating.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

15. Hope it comes. But I've been curious about that one

It's a common practice for people to go down to the tax appraiser's office and get them to come down on their tax assessments. So must not be illegal. But is there a threshold where it becomes illegal? I honestly don't know.

Read about his property in NY, where he is claiming that undeveloped tract is worth a hell of a lot more than it really is because he's claiming it as a gift to the city which is tax deductible. Wouldn't that just result in "you owes $x more taxes?

I want to see him burn, but don't want to get any false hopes up.

[pnwmom]

17. The threshold would be when they tell the bank loan officer one valuation of a property

and insist it's much lower when they go to the tax assessor's office.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

20. Buti think that's common. Most people put market value

of house on balance sheet. Tax appraised value is lower. Wondering where the point of criminality is.

[pnwmom]

21. I don't know who Buti is but that's not how it works in places I've lived.

If you dispute your tax assessment, you do it by submitting sales prices or city valuations of comparable homes -- i.e., the market value.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

22. Lol. Buti But I. Yes I am in Texas and that's how it

works here too. You go to appraiser's office with comps and rationale why they appraised too high. They agree or not. Don't *think* this part is illegal because it happens ever day. I guess unless you come with fraudulent comps? I don't know?

On the flip side, overvaluing holdings could definitely be fraudulent. I know on his Westchester deal, he had a strip of undeveloped land near his mansion there. He tried in vain for years to develop it and could never get the town to approve. So then he came up with the idea to donate it to the town. And then write it off as a tax write-off. But he did this for millions more than many think it is worth. He was valuing the property as if it had been developed or had a mansion on it. Instead of the undeveloped value. So the prosecutors were trying to get the appraiser to turn over their records to see if somehow Trump coerced the appraiser to set the value higher than it really should have been.

That's my take on it anyway. I don't know all the specific facts. I think this is the part that is definitely fraudulent. However, seems like it could just result in him owing back taxes?

[pnwmom]

25. LOL Buti. I guess I should have figured that out!

NY has strict banking laws, and I don't know them. However, it might also be fraud if he, for example, overvalued that undeveloped property you just mentioned in an application to a bank where he was required to show his net worth.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

26. I "think* it matters most when there's a direct link to money?

In the NY deal, he claimed the land grant as a donation, which reduced his taxes owed. Guilty especially if the appraisal firm said no, it's only worth X and trump coerced them. Why they subpoenaed the appraiser records.

As for Banks, unless the said property was actually securing a loan and not just listed as an asset which the bank couldn't foreclose on, then I don't *think* they'd investigate the inflated value unless they thought the person was fishy.

Of course all bets are off on some huge deal where he bilks a bank. If you have some kind of cross- collateralization agreement? But if you did you'd probably get an appraisal? Guess they could sue for providing falsified information?
. Typically you look at income and cash flow - ability to repay.

[greenjar_01]

12. They're talking about "fringe benefits" as if they didn't declare a parking spot in an empty lot

That's bullshit. They essentially paid this guy and each other millions through in-kind "benefits" in order to hide money from the NY State taxing authority, the IRS, and probably others.

Why? Just to beat the taxes? Come on. They are insolvent except for laundered cash. they can't declare it, anymore than Manafort could declare his dirty Russian/Cyprian cash, so he transforms it into moronic goods and commodities.

It's not that they were cheating the tax man with fringe benefits. It's that they were paying themselves in harder-to-trace goods and services because the cash is filthy as fuck.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

23. Read avoiding FICA taxes....which may be how they

get them? And thought I read that it's the flip side too the recipient of the gift did not declare it.

Can you please explain something tho... If it is dirty money and they pay an execs kids tuition, for example, how is that hiding the dirty cash? And was it treated as legitimate business expense?

[iluvtennis]

16. Can't wait to see the details on THursday at 2pm EDT. n/t

[Laura PourMeADrink]

24. Thank you! Was wondering what time it was gonna happen

[SunSeeker]

18. K & R

[EndlessWire]

19. I'm very cynical about this.

Sorry, but I don't think it will amount to much. So what if this Weisselberg guy gets in trouble? He'll buy his way out of it, and no Trump will be touched. THERE IS ALWAYS A LAYER OF SECURITY between Trump's dirty hands and the money. There is never a direct transfer of cash. The tRump's will throw this guy under the bus and walk away. No one is going to jail. Increasingly, I want to see someone go to jail longer than a few weeks or months. But, two impeachments later, the big Orange Turd is immune, putting his sticky fingers into the politics of the land and pretending that he still means something.