News breaks that sometime in recent weeks, two subpoenas were issued to the Trump Organization for records related to Ivanka Trump and her consulting firm.
The subpoenas are for two ongoing investigations. One is a civil investigation by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, into Donald Trump’s business dealings. The other is a criminal probe by Manhattan’s district attorney, Cy Vance Jr., who Trump bribed in previous years to drop fraud charges against Don Jr. and Ivanka.
Both investigations are at least partly related to allegations, made in news reports and by President Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, that Trump had a history of inflating the value of some assets to impress banks and business partners, but lowering that value when seeking tax benefits.
Associated Press (CBS News)
The New York Times obtained and released Donald Trump’s tax records in September. The records appeared to show that Trump funneled payments to Ivanka’s consulting company instead of paying her as a Trump Organization staff member, reducing the family’s tax bill.
Among the revelations was that Mr. Trump reduced his taxable income by deducting about $26 million in fees to unidentified consultants as a business expense on numerous projects between 2010 and 2018.
Some of those fees appear to have been paid to Ms. Trump, The Times found. On a 2017 disclosure she filed when joining the White House as a presidential adviser, she reported receiving payments from a consulting company she co-owned, totaling $747,622, that exactly matched consulting fees claimed as tax deductions by the Trump Organization for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, British Columbia.
The subpoenas were focused on fees paid to the firm on her disclosures, TTT Consulting L.L.C., and represented just a portion of the $26 million, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The name of the firm appears to be a reference to Ms. Trump and other members of her family.
The New York Times
Sources
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/nyregion/trump-fraud-investigations-taxes.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-investigating-trump-tax-write-offs-ivanka/
Photo: Gage Skidmore