The president, in his apparent perception, is above the law. That serves as one of the most reasonable explanations for why he finds it nothing to routinely contest the very legitimacy of the nation’s justice system to the point of having abruptly fired the FBI Director last May.
That’s also seemingly why he finds it nothing to have now yet again sued over the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s valuation of his golf course in Jupiter, Florida.
According to The Palm Beach Daily News, this “suit marks the fifth year in a row that Trump has disputed the property tax bill for the 131-acre course along Donald Ross Road.” The county’s most recent valuation of the property pegs its worth at least $19.7 million, sparking a tax bill for the president of $398,315.
Trump disputes this, having sent a wire transfer of $296,595.01, which is the amount his team claims is a “good faith estimate” of what he really owes, and making a concurrent implied claim that the property in question is only worth about $15 million.
It’s a serious question why the president still even maintains a financial stake in any of this, since it creates a conflict of interest and the obvious potential for him to literally profit from his presidency.
The Palm Beach Daily News points out something extraordinary in all of this. On the president’s 2016 and 2017 financial disclosures, he lists the valuation of his Palm Beach County golf property at over $50 million.
The lawsuit from the Trump team against the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser was filed last December, and besides Property Appraiser Dorothy Jacks, the suit also names Tax Collector Anne Gannon and Florida Department of Revenue head Leon Biegalski as defendants.
The Daily News notes that the Trump National Golf Club is among the highest valued in the county, but there is, as the publication explains, a good reason for that.
Although the course is not right on the ocean, with the only higher valued property at such a location, the course makes a significant amount of money, and that, a third party expert explains, is the reason for the high valuation.
As Pennsylvania appraiser Larry Hirsch put it:
‘Forget about price per acre. Forget about closer to the ocean. The way you evaluate a property like that is based on its economics, and how much money it makes.’
Trump, according to the Daily News, “has yet to win a challenge over the Jupiter club’s value.” The course has been among the many that he’s spent about one-fourth of his presidency up until this point at, having played there with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last year.
This issue with his Jupiter golf course is far from the first time that his taxes have been a news topic.
Although he claimed that he would eventually release his tax returns so that Americans could themselves examine the president’s financial ties, he has since backed down on that promise.
Concurrent to that, last year, the president signed a massive tax overhaul into law that includes benefits for wealthy Americans while repealing provisions that served lower income Americans, like the ObamaCare individual mandate.
Featured Image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images
