The president’s self-made billionaire story is dead. It appears, that Donald Trump did not start off with a “small” one-million dollar amount from his father as his myth goes. Instead, the president started off with a far, far greater amount.
When the president was three-years-old, he had earned $200,000, thanks to Fred Trump. His father set it up. By the time POTUS was eight-years-old, he was a millionaire. When he graduated from college, the Donald was hauling in a million dollars a year. Those numbers continued to increase well into the man sitting in the Oval Office’s 40’s and 50’s.
That small gift of one million dollars hard-luck story that Trump has told was actually “413 million from his father’s real estate empire,” according to The New York Times. Every time Fred’s son got into financial difficulties with one of his businesses, his father bailed him out.
The Times also reported that most of his funds came from his father via Fred Trump’s attempts to avoid paying taxes. The elder Trump set up a “sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts.”
Criminal fraud limits have long been expired. Not so for civil fraud, which could result in very significant fines. However, the IRS under this administration would have to pursue this sort of crime. The sheer amount of money, million and millions of dollars in revenue have been lost. The Times questioned whether the president could break the family’s decades-long habit of fraud.
Attorney for Trump, Charles Harder, issued a written statement that read:
‘The New York Times’s allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100 percent false, and highly defamatory. There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. The facts upon which The Times bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate.’
The president’s brother, Robert Trump, issued a statement on behalf of the Trump family:
‘Our dear father, Fred C. Trump, passed away in June 1999. Our beloved mother, Mary Anne Trump, passed away in August 2000. All appropriate gift and estate tax returns were filed, and the required taxes were paid. Our father’s estate was closed in 2001 by both the Internal Revenue Service and the New York State tax authorities, and our mother’s estate was closed in 2004. Our family has no other comment on these matters that happened some 20 years ago, and would appreciate your respecting the privacy of our deceased parents, may God rest their souls.’
University of Florida law professor and leading gift and estate tax law expert, Lee-Ford Tritt, said:
‘The theme I see here through all of this is valuations: They play around with valuations in extreme ways. There are dramatic fluctuations depending on their purpose.’
Fred and Mary Trump paid $52.2 million in taxes, which was just five percent. By giving the money and properties to their four children, the president’s parents:
‘Transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate then imposed on gifts and inheritances.’
After Fred Trump died, the four children sold off their father’s entire empire developed over a 70-year span. POTUS got $177.3 million or $236.2 million in current dollars.
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
