Report: Trump Received $885 Million in Tax Breaks for His New York Empire

[DonViejo]

By Chas Danner

An investigation by the New York Times has found that Donald Trump has received at least $885 million in tax breaks, subsidies, and grants for his apartment, hotel, and office developments in New York City, based on analysis of the city’s tax, housing, and finance records. Indeed, Trump seems to have worked to extract as many incentives and exemptions as he could out of the New York government for his real-estate projects — something the candidate has often boasted about himself, having repeatedly explained that, as a businessman, he always fights to pay as little tax as possible. (Of course, since Trump has thus far refused to release his tax returns, it’s impossible to know how much of that is also true when it comes to Trump’s personal finances.) In addition, the new report is only focused on Trump’s New York developments, and as the candidate explained to the Times, he has “gotten incentives in other parts of the world as well,” though he insists that “in many cases, [the incentives] made the difference between building and not being able to build.”

The investigation also found that Trump routinely used his and his father’s political connections to get the breaks he wanted, incentives that helped him cut costs on his projects and make more money on the apartments he sold as a result of lower taxes. And when political connections didn’t work, Trump was more than happy to sue to get the benefits he desired, which he did across three difference mayoral administrations.

The Times points out that while de Blasio and Giuliani administration veteran Alicia Glen characterized Trump as “probably worse than any other developer in his relentless pursuit of every single dime of taxpayer subsidies he can get his paws on”:

In seeking those subsidies, Mr. Trump is not that different from many other developers. But the level of subsidies he has received along with his doggedness in claiming them seem at odds with his rhetoric as an outsider candidate who boasts of his single-handed success and who has denounced what he calls the pay-to-play culture of politics and a “rigged” system of government.

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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/report-trump-received-usd885-million-in-new-york-tax-breaks.html

[politicaljunkie41910]

1. What's the difference between a 'rent subsidy' and a welfare payment?

Nothing. They both reduce the City/State/Federal Treasury of money's that otherwise would be spent elsewhere. Donald Trump is a Welfare Queen. In fact, he's THE Queen of Welfare Queens.

I wouldn't be surprised that when the last chapter is written on this Welfare Queen, we will find out that he ripped off many state and local agencies and we'll find out that he had inside help in doing so. Notice who his best friends are. Rudi Guiliani, (the former Mayor of New York) but who knows he probably was the actual mayor when these funds were given out. Bernie Kerik the former police chief who went to prison for taking $250K of renovations on his personal residence from a contractor looking to do business with the city.

The other day I was reading an article about Trump on DU about how he used to blackmail people. The story was about his divorce from Ivana and something about a lawyer who was working against him and how he got a cop to follow him around and provide him with information about the lawyer. Information that he was then threatening to expose him with if he didn't drop the case he was pursuing against Trump I believe related to Ivana's divorce. We also know that he had a relationship with some Mob bosses related to labor on his construction projects.

Trump also received some kind of special tax break from Chris Christie I assume on some project in New Jersey. When the final chapter is written, I bet we will find that they were all corrupt.