Why isn't there any talk about prosecuting Trump for fraud on the tax returns?

[TigressDem]

25. RED FLAGS in the returns being examined

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/22/red-flags-trump-taxes-00075198

MAMMOTH BUSINESS LOSSES: The single-biggest issue in Trump’s taxes is the massive losses he is claiming — it is the primary reason he paid little or no tax between 2015 and 2020.

MINGLING EXPENSES?: There are multiple instances in which Trump may be improperly deducting money spent on personal activities and hobbies as business expenses.

JCT says it found many filings that are used to report streams of income where his earnings and expenses exactly matched, or where there was no reported income at all — a sign of potential improper mingling of expenses.

In 2016, for example, the filing for DT Endeavor I LLC (aviation) reported gross income of $680,886 and expenses that also totaled $680,886. A filing for Melania Trump (modeling) said it took in $3,848 and reported the same amount of expenses. A filing for Donald J. Trump (speaking) reported $50,000 in gross income and $46,162 in travel expenses.

LOANS TO HIS KIDS: Trump reported receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest payments on loans he gave Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump.


That raises eyebrows because that could be a way to get around the gift tax. If he gave money outright to his kids, it would likely be subject to a stiff 40 percent tax. The gift tax is designed to prevent people from escaping the estate tax by giving money away to their kids, for example, while they’re alive.

Calling that money a loan would avoid the gift tax while also allowing his children to deduct from their own taxes the interest they paid him.

LAND CONSERVATION: Analysts question a $21 million deduction Trump took in 2015 for a conservation easement at his Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, New York.

The easements allow people to take charitable deductions for promising to cordon off property from development to protect wildlife, for example. The question here is the value assigned to the land — the bigger the value, the larger the deduction.

New York Attorney General Letitia James is now challenging this same conservation easement valuation in court, alleging Trump and his business “manipulated the appraisals to inflate the value of the donated development rights” at Seven Springs and another property.

FOREIGN TAXES: Trump didn’t pay much U.S. tax in the returns examined — just $1.8 million over the six-year period. But in 2018 he claimed a foreign tax credit for paying $1.3 million to other governments.

People can claim a credit for paying levies elsewhere, something that’s designed to spare people from having to pay taxes twice on the same dollar. The question here is whether those are legit.