“Fake news”. Donald Trump resorted to his usual parade, Sunday, September 27, during a press conference that took place just minutes after the publication of a long article in the New York Times. It was devoted to his presidency’s best kept secret: the financial state of his real estate empire. The picture drawn up by this survey is partial given the complexity of the subject. The image that emerges, however, is that of an empire weakened by its losses, where tax optimization is practiced in all directions, without anyone knowing yet whether it has remained strictly within the framework of the law. When contacted by the authors of the investigation, an official from the Trump Organization also assured that it was a tissue of untruths.
A symbolic figure emerges from this reading: 750 dollars (645 euros). This is the amount of federal taxes paid by the businessman in the year of his election to the presidency, in 2016, as for the following one. This sum is derisory and, according to the New York Times, Donald Trump did not spend a hundred tax ten of the previous fifteen years. This situation is explained, according to the investigation, by considerable losses suffered by the Trump Organization during the same period. They are at odds with the image of the triumphant businessman he embodied in the reality show The Apprentice at the origin of a revival of fortune, and which he never ceased to use as a campaign argument.
According to the documents to which the New York Times has had access, golf clubs purchased over the past two decades are losing money. Just like the hotel created at great expense in the former Washington Post Office, which has become a staple for the president’s faithful as well as foreign officials who hope to establish good relations with his administration. As the daily newspaper cruelly writes, “In the end, Mr. Trump was more successful in playing a business mogul than in real life”.
A debt of $ 421 million
But another amount is likely to fuel embarrassing questions for Donald Trump. According to New York Times, he must indeed reimburse creditors in the next four years, which correspond to the duration of a second term if he is re-elected on November 3, the sum of $ 421 million. The investigation also highlights a reimbursement from the tax authorities of an amount of $ 72.9 million which is the subject of litigation.
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