According to a report in the New York Times, Donald Trump and his siblings created a fake maintenance company in the '90s which created bogus invoices to pad expenses, duck taxes and inflate the rent of their father's properties.
In a deep dive, the Times said that in 1992, Trump and his family set up a phony company called All County Building Supply & Maintenance which did nothing but pay vendors -- and then was reimbursed by their father, Fred Trump at a higher rate. The report states that money above and beyond what was warranted was then split between the kids allowing them to duck paying taxes on the excess cash.
Additionally, the fraudulently increased amounts were reported as “improvement costs,” allowing the family to raise rents on properties that were rent regulated.
In a sworn deposition, Trump's brother Robert once admitted, "The higher the markup would be, the higher the rent that might be charged.”
According to the report, the tax and rent scam has been a windfall for the Trumps.
"The sum total of the rent overcharges cannot be calculated from available records. As a way to appreciate the scope of the impact, a onetime $10 increase in 1995 on all the 8,000 apartments involved would put the total overpaid by tenants at more than $33 million to date, an analysis of approved rent increases shows," the Times reports.
You can read more here.
This image obtained from the Mississippi Highway Patrol shows emergency personnel on Highway 49 near Silver City after a tornado touched down © Handout / Mississippi Highway Patrol/AFP
