Poor Stallman

>>400 part 7 https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-jul-oct.html#4_October_2020_(What_we_have_learned_from_the_conman's_tax_returns) -- A thorough report on what we have learned from the conman's tax returns. -- https://www.deccanherald.com/international/world-news-politics/donald-trump-did-not-pay-income-tax-in-10-of-last-15-years-894048.html -- Donald Trump did not pay income tax in 10 of last 15 years -- Sep 28 2020

Trump had big plans when he bought the property in 1996 — a golf course, a clubhouse and 15 private homes. But residents of surrounding towns thwarted his ambitions, arguing that development would draw too much traffic and risk polluting the drinking water. Trump instead found a way to reap tax benefits from the estate. He took advantage of what is known as a conservation easement. In 2015, he signed a deal with a land conservancy, agreeing not to develop most of the property. In exchange, he claimed a $21.1 million charitable tax deduction. The tax records reveal another way Seven Springs has generated substantial tax savings. In 2014, Trump classified the estate as an investment property, as distinct from a personal residence. Since then, he has written off $2.2 million in property taxes as a business expense — even as his 2017 tax law allowed individuals to write off only $10,000 in property taxes a year. Courts have held that to treat residences as businesses for tax purposes, owners must show that they have “an actual and honest objective of making a profit,” typically by making substantial efforts to rent the property and eventually generating income.

Whether or not Seven Springs fits those criteria, the Trumps have described the property somewhat differently. In 2014, Eric Trump told Forbes that “this is really our compound.” Growing up, he and his brother Donald Jr. spent many summers there, riding all-terrain vehicles and fishing on a nearby lake. At one point, the brothers took up residence in a carriage house on the property. “It was home base for us for a long, long time,” Eric told Forbes. And the Trump Organization website still describes Seven Springs as a “retreat for the Trump family.” Garten, the Trump Organization lawyer, did not respond to a question about the Seven Springs write-off.

The Seven Springs conservation-easement deduction is one of four that Donald Trump has claimed over the years. While his use of these deductions is widely known, his tax records show that they represent the lion’s share of his charitable giving — about $119.3 million of roughly $130 million in personal and corporate charitable contributions reported to the IRS. Two of those deductions — at Seven Springs and at the Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles — are the focus of an investigation by the New York attorney general, who is examining whether the appraisals on the land, and therefore the tax deductions, were inflated. Another common deductible expense for all businesses is legal fees. The IRS requires that these fees be “directly related to operating your business,” and businesses cannot deduct “legal fees paid to defend charges that arise from participation in a political campaign.” Yet the tax records show that Trump Corp. wrote off as business expenses fees paid to a criminal defence lawyer, Alan S. Futerfas, who was hired to represent Donald Trump Jr. during the Russia inquiry. Investigators were examining Donald Jr.’s role in the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians who had promised damaging information on Clinton. When he testified before Congress in 2017, Futerfas was by his side.

Futerfas was also hired to defend the president’s embattled charitable foundation, which would be shut down in 2018 after New York regulators said it had engaged in “a shocking pattern of illegality.” The Trump Corp. paid Futerfas at least $1.9 million in 2017 and 2018, tax records show. Also written off was at least $259,684 paid to Williams & Jensen, another law firm brought in during the same period to represent Donald Trump Jr. Deals in countries led by strongmen, tenants who have business before the federal government, and hotels and clubs that draw those seeking access or favour. In May, the chairman of a trade group representing Turkish business interests wrote to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross urging support for increased trade between the United States and Turkey. The ultimate goal was nothing less than “reorienting the US supply chain away from China.”

The letter was among three sent to Cabinet secretaries by Mehmet Ali Yalcindag, chairman of the Turkey-US Business Council, who noted that he had copied each one to Trump. The president needed no introduction to Yalcindag: The Turkish businessman helped negotiate a licensing deal in 2008 for his family’s company to develop two Trump towers in Istanbul. The tax records show the deal has earned Trump at least $13 million — far more than previously known — including more than $1 million since he entered the White House, even as his onetime associate now lobbies on behalf of Turkish interests. Yalcindag said that he had “remained friendly” with Trump since their work together years ago but that all communications between his trade group and the administration “go through formal channels and are properly disclosed.” The ethical quandaries created by Trump’s decision to keep his business while in the White House have been documented. But the full financial measure of his extraordinary confluence of interests — a president with a wealth of business entanglements at home and in myriad geopolitical hot spots — has remained elusive.