Last updated on January 25th, 2021 at 04:10 am
Donald Trump’s tax returns show that he paid his daughter Ivanka as a consultant, even though she is a member of the company which is against IRS rules.
Mr. Trump reduced his taxable income by treating a family member as a consultant, and then deducting the fee as a cost of doing business.
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The “consultants†are not identified in the tax records. But evidence of this arrangement was gleaned by comparing the confidential tax records to the financial disclosures Ivanka Trump filed when she joined the White House staff in 2017. Ms. Trump reported receiving payments from a consulting company she co-owned, totaling $747,622, that exactly matched consulting fees claimed as tax deductions by the Trump Organization for hotel projects in Vancouver and Hawaii.
Ms. Trump had been an executive officer of the Trump companies that received profits from and paid the consulting fees for both projects — meaning she appears to have been treated as a consultant on the same hotel deals that she helped manage as part of her job at her father’s business.
Fake consulting deals with members of a company that is also managing the same project are a big red flag to the IRS. Trump hid income by listing his own daughter a consultant on projects that she was managing. In other words, Ivanka Trump and her father were cheating the United States government, and the American people to hide income and avoid paying taxes.
The implications of Trump’s tax returns go far beyond his lies about his wealth and the potential tax fraud that he has committed for decades. It turns out that cheating the American people is part of the family business.
Ivanka Trump has already been under investigation for potential tax crimes related to the 2016 presidential inauguration, but the scheme with her father could have greater implications. It clear that out of the Trump children Ivanka is the favorite who is being groomed as the political and business heir apparent to Trump.
She also could share her father’s legal jeopardy, as daddy could be taking his little girl down with him for his decades of theft and fraud.
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Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
