Former US President Donald Trump’s real estate company has eluded tax authorities for 15 years, a prosecutor said Monday in her opening statement in the Trump Organizations criminal tax fraud trial. Defense lawyers claimed that the company’s chief financial officer was acting only in his own name.
The company paid certain executives — including Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg — in benefits such as real estate and car rentals without reporting those benefits to tax authorities, as well as bonuses falsely reported as compensation for non-employees, explained Susan Hoffinger, a prosecutor in the US Attorney’s office. Manhattan District Attorney.
The case is among the mounting legal troubles facing Trump, 76, as he considers another presidential bid after his 2020 defeat.
Weisselberg, who has worked for Trump for nearly half a century, in August pleaded guilty and agreed to testify as a witness for the prosecution in the trial, as part of a deal for him to receive a five-month prison sentence.
Lawyers for the two Trump Organizations units argued that Weisselberg withheld taxes to benefit, not to favor the company. Both the Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation have pleaded not guilty. Trump was not charged in the case.
“Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg,” claimed Michael Van Der Veen, attorney for the Trump Payroll Corporation, in his opening statement. “Greed made him evade taxes, hide his actions from his employer and betray the trust built over nearly 50 years.”
Hoffinger further expressed that Weisselberg was “one of the main beneficiaries” of the scheme. But she said he acted in his official capacity as an executive at the Trump Organizations and that the company also benefited from keeping top executives happy and saving on some taxes.
“Everybody wins here,” Hoffinger communicated. “Of course, everyone but the tax authorities. The problem with doing it this way is that it’s not cool.”
Van Der Veen also sought to blame the accounting firm Mazars, which handled the company’s and Weisselberg’s tax returns.
Mazars did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In February, the company dropped the Trump Organizations as a client and said the financial statements it prepared for the company from 2011 to 2020 should no longer be trusted.
Source: CNN Brasil
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