Kendra wrote: ↑Tue Oct 25, 2022 7:10 pm
Will be interesting to see how the case unfolds. It seems clear that Weisselman and others got these nice perks, but did it come in a check from Trump Org? Did Trump Org pay directly to the vendors (landlords on the apartments, car dealers, to schools for tuition fees?). If they did, could they in some far off trump world did Trump Org put it on their taxes as a business expense? Did Trump Org ACH funds direct to these recipients?
Off Topic
All I know from my experience doing payables for a small-ish company, is anything over the threshold ($500?) I wouldn't even cut a check without a W-9 on file first, chasing them down afterwards can be somewhat challenging and time consuming. I don't do AP anymore, but poor M learned a lesson when one of the branch managers *hired* someone to do some work at the branch and the guy doing it first wanted cash (that wasn't gonna happen), but she cut him the check without getting the W-9 and I'm pretty damn sure the guy is not a business and since we didn't get a Tax ID #, there's no reporting back to him to make sure he claims the income.
There are a lot of ways that a business can bury things in the books. I want to see the ownership chart of his myriad entities. I bet it is like a convoluted pyramid with A owning parts of C,D,E,and F while D owns part of B and E, and B owning parts of C,E, and F, and so on. The ultimate owner of most of this stuff is tfg (Company A) with probably minority interests among his kids in selected entities.
Payments for these perks could have been split among several of these entities. It is easier to escape detection if a $25,000 payment to a vendor is carved up with five-$5,000 checks from five companies instead of one $25,000 check. I suspect that some of the rentals were in properties owned in full or in majority by tRump Organization. Nothing visible, and auditors don't look at the tenant lists unless they have a tip.
We also know that Daddy tRump used dummy companies to jack up the costs of operating rental properties. The dummy company would buy materials for $X, then turn around and sell those same materials for ten times that amount. He got certain benefits from spending those dollars while his kids got income from the ginormous markups on those materials. Do you think tfg is going to reinvent the wheel? Is it possible that he has continued to do similarly with these business perks, perhaps getting a little "tax-free" action in return? Venality is one of his attributes, amirite?
Regarding the W-9: this is a relatively new form. I think it came about in the 90s or so. Ancient practitioners of the dark accounting arts never bothered to obtain SSNs for independent contractors until the IRS started rattling its sabers and assessing a $100 penalty for each form that was not filed. You think a $100 a pop would deter someone like tfg?
I agree, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out. It will be interesting if many of his subterfuges are revealed at trial. It will be more interesting if the DA can distill these artifices down so that a jury can follow along.