Palm Beach Paper Exposes “Tax Scam” At Mar-A-Lago

The Palm Beach Post reports:

Donald Trump’s deal with the town of Palm Beach to turn Mar-a-Lago into a private club hinged on an act of charity crafted to skirt IRS scrutiny and deliver for Trump a seven-figure tax break, a Palm Beach Post investigation has found.

To make sure Trump could get the $5.7 million deduction, America’s future president and his lawyers intentionally left out those details from the written agreement with town officials.

The deal, which took shape in public meetings over several months in 1993, provides the best look at Trump’s largest form of charity: an obscure and controversial land-use deduction known as a preservation easement.

Since then, Trump has applied the tax break to his golf courses and estates to potentially deduct more than $100 million from his taxes, even though the IRS once listed such deductions among their “Dirty Dozen Tax Scams.” One tax expert said that if Trump is under audit, as he says he is, his frequent and vigorous use of the deductions “absolutely” could be why.

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