The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has subpoenaed the New York City property tax agency as part of a criminal investigation into Donald Trump’s company, the agency confirmed Friday, with prosecutors seeking to lower the former president’s potential real estate tax. Investigating the President’s efforts. Of fraud.
The subpoena issued to the New York City Tax Commission is the latest indication that Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. is looking at the values Trump owes to certain commercial properties in tax filings and loan documents.
With little information from creditors already in place, tax agency documents will help investigators determine whether Trump’s business defied those values to lower tax bills for those assets, with favorable terms on the debt Increased the value of its assets to secure.
New York City Tax Commission Chairman Francis Henne confirmed the subpoena in response to an investigation by Reuters.
Uppana’s prospect would force the agency to provide detailed income and expense statements, which Trump Organization would have filed, according to people familiar with the commission’s operations, in an effort to reduce taxation on some of its commercial properties. Trump’s hold includes Trump Tower and Trump Plaza.
He said those filings would typically include valuations submitted by the company to challenge the market values assigned to Trump’s assets by the city’s tax assessors.
The subpoenas have also been issued to at least two creditors that help Trump’s real-estate holdings, Deutsche Bank AG and Ladder Capital Finance LLC, Reuters has previously reported.
Vance’s office declined to comment on Uppoena, the tax commission. Deutsche Bank also declined to comment. Ladder Capital did not respond to a request for comment. A representative for Trump and an attorney for the Trump Organization also did not respond to requests for comment.
Vance has not commented specifically on the focus of his investigation, but noted in court-filed notes that his office is exploring “possibly widespread and deviant criminal conduct” at the Trump Organization, with records – Also includes insurance and tax fraud.
The Vance investigation is the only known criminal investigation of Trump’s real estate business. New York State Attorney General Letitia James is leading a separate civil investigation into whether Trump’s company falsely reported property values to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits.
The Tax Commission is New York City’s platform to defer appeals of tax assessments set by the city’s Department of Finance, which administers property tax bills and collections. A spokesman for the New York City mayor’s office said the department was not subcontracted.
Tax assessments are based on the market value of a property, as determined by the department, so the challenges require detailed documentation to show that the stated value is not accurate, including revenue and occupancy data.
If Trump’s business claimed a significantly lower value for a property in its tax filings, as in documents it presented to creditors, the discrepancy could help withdraw a fraudulent charge, Daniel J. According to Horwitz, who was previously a white-collar defenseman. During more than eight years in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, he was prosecuted in tax and complex fraud cases.
If there is a “material difference” between the property values claimed in tax filings and the values claimed in loan documents, he said, “reasonably attractive.”
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