Self-Made Fraud

The New York Times reports on the origin of Dear Leader's wealth. And now, state tax officials want to investigate.

[T]he equivalent today of at least $413 million [was received] from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.

Much of this money came to Mr. [von Clownstick] because he helped his parents dodge taxes. He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents, records and interviews show. Records indicate that Mr. [von Clownstick] helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more. He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.

Update (October 3):  Max Boot calls Fuckface "the worst person ever to be president". And Heather Digby Parton notes:

He's not likely to have cheated to benefit his kids the way [his father] did. [Fuckface von Clownstick] cheats for the benefit of one person, and one person alone.

Update (October 7):  Bob Hennelly notes that the rich avoiding inheritance taxes is nothing new.

Update (November 1):  Not related to tax fraud, but a new lawsuit accuses Fuckface and his family of running their business as "a racketeering enterprise that defrauded thousands of people". Bring it on--make him regret the day he ever thought about entering politics.

Update (May 8, 2019):  The New York Times obtained information about 10 years worth of tax returns for Dear Leader and found he claimed losses of over one billion dollars during 1985 to 1994. Quite the loser. Amanda Marcotte tears apart his excuses.

[Fuckface], unsurprisingly, took to Twitter to defend himself, saying that he used shady write-offs as a "tax shelter" and that "it was sport" to "show losses for tax purposes" and "re-negotiate with banks."

Well, OK then. So [his] self-defense is that he's not really a failure, but rather a cheat who lied to both banks and the government in order to defraud them and enrich himself.

And cheating is a way of life that suits Republicans just fine.

Update (May 10, 2019):  "Ghostwriter" Charles Leerhsen describes just how great a businessman we have as the leader of the free world.

[F]lipping through fabric swatches seemed at times to be his main occupation. ... [T]he main thing about fabric swatches was that they were within his comfort zone — whereas, for example, the management of hotels and airlines clearly wasn't. One of his aides once told me that every room at the Plaza could be filled at the "rack rate" (list price) every night, and the revenue still wouldn’t cover the monthly payment of the loan he'd taken out to buy the place. In other words, he'd made a ridiculous deal.

Update (June 30, 2019):  The Center for Public Integrity takes a close look at Fuckface finances.

Update (October 16, 2019):  Some Fuckface tax documents have been discovered.

Documents obtained by ProPublica show stark differences in how [Dear Leader's] businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two Manhattan buildings, giving a lender different figures than they provided to New York City tax authorities. The discrepancies made the buildings appear more profitable to the lender — and less profitable to the officials who set the buildings’ property tax.

Update (October 27, 2019):  In addition to mountains of corruption already in the news, Bob Cesca describes peculiar stock purchases timed with Fuckface statements about trade policy that gave unknown investors as much as $1.8 billion profit in one day.

[T]here’s no way of knowing that [Orangeman] would suddenly emerge with that announcement ..., unless the president or someone acquainted with his thinking alerted the investor. If that happened, [Dear Leader] and the investor could be in a lot of trouble.

Update (December 1, 2019):  Is it tax fraud or accounting fraud?

[T]he occupancy rate of the ... Tower’s commercial space was listed, over three consecutive years, as 11, 16 and 16 percentage points higher in filings to a lender than in reports to city tax officials.

[Fuckface] had much to gain by showing a high occupancy rate to lenders in 2012: He refinanced his share of [the] Tower that year and obtained a $100 million loan on favorable terms.

Update (August 5, 2020):  Brad Reed reports that von Clownstick's lawyers fucked up.

[T]he president’s attorneys falsely claimed that [Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance's] office was only running a narrow investigation into the president’s hush money payments to two women in the run up to the 2016 presidential election, and thus was not entitled to see his financial information.

However, Vance’s office called the president’s bluff and publicly disclosed that it was probing much more than just the president’s illegal campaign payments.

David Lurie:

As a result of his own lawyers’ bad strategy, [Dear Leader] enters the final stretch of the campaign with the cloud of a broad criminal investigation hanging directly over his head. All of that would have been properly kept confidential as the grand jury continued its work if [Fuckface's] own lawyers hadn’t opened this can of worms.

Update (August 6, 2020):  The New York Times reports that Deutsche Bank has complied with a subpoena from Manhattan DA Vance for von Clownstick financial records.