Trump’s company fined $1.6 million for tax fraud

Don­ald Trump’s real estate firm has been fined $1.6 mil­lion by a New York judge for tax violations.

A jury found the Trump Orga­ni­za­tion guilty of fraud and fal­si­fi­ca­tion of busi­ness records in December.

The com­pa­ny is syn­ony­mous with the for­mer pres­i­dent, but nei­ther he nor his fam­i­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the trial.

Only the com­pa­ny’s for­mer chief finan­cial offi­cer, Allen Was­sel­berg, has been indicted.

Trump con­tin­ues to face legal trou­bles, includ­ing a law­suit being filed against him­self and his chil­dren in New York on alle­ga­tions of fraud.

Two sub­sidiaries of the Trump Orga­ni­za­tion (Trump Corp. and Trump Pay­roll Corp.) have enriched top exec­u­tives for 15 years with tax ben­e­fits such as lux­u­ry cars and pub­lic school fees, accord­ing to a New York jury. was con­vict­ed of

Pros­e­cu­tors say these ben­e­fits com­pen­sat­ed for their low­er salaries and, as a result, reduced the amount of tax­es the com­pa­nies had to pay.

It is the first crim­i­nal con­vic­tion against one of Trump’s companies.

The fine Fri­day ordered by Man­hat­tan Crim­i­nal Court Judge Juan Mer­chan is the max­i­mum a judge could impose in the case.

While the fine is pal­try com­pared to the com­pa­ny’s rev­enue, which made the Trump Orga­ni­za­tion $446 mil­lion in rev­enue in 2019, the con­vic­tion has pre­vent­ed it from secur­ing loans and loans going for­ward. is like­ly to be difficult.

Man­hat­tan Dis­trict Attor­ney Alvin Bragg Jr. said in a state­ment that the rul­ing rep­re­sents a “sig­nif­i­cant chap­ter” in the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into Trump and his companies.

He fur­ther said that Weisel­berg and the Trump Orga­ni­za­tion “has prof­it­ed from mas­sive fraud for more than a decade,” and that the con­vic­tion and sen­tenc­ing mean com­pa­nies “can’t get away with deceiv­ing the tax author­i­ties.” He said that it was a reminder of that.

Weisel­berg, who was the CFO of Trump’s com­pa­ny for many years, was sen­tenced to five months in prison for being involved in a tax fraud scheme. He plead­ed guilty to with­hold­ing more than $1.7 mil­lion in off-the-books earnings.

Trump was dis­sat­is­fied with the rul­ing and vowed to appeal. He also accused the tri­al of being polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed, call­ing it a “witch hunt”.

Sep­a­rate­ly, New York Attor­ney Gen­er­al Leti­tia James is suing Trump and his chil­dren for fraud. Trump has also been under inves­ti­ga­tion by the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice for his han­dling of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments since he took office.

In both cas­es, Trump has denied any wrong­do­ing. He also sued James for “black­mail.”