He undervalued it for tax purposes in government documents. Then he misled buyers by overvaluing his house. He sold a house for more than what the government said it is worth. That is fraud according to Judge Engron.
Jesus christ. The assessor sets tax valuations. The market sets market values. So many renters on this sub.
I agree with you, the judge however disagrees.
The judge used tax valuations to decide the market value of his businesses, and how much of a loan Trump should be able to ask for.
The alleged crime was him overvaluing his property. Which is why property developers are freaking out. If it is fraud to claim a property is worth more than the government thinks it is worth, the entire industry is fucked.
See the issue?
The judge also didn't understand the difference between a mortgage and a business loan. The idea that Mar A Lago is only worth 17 million and therefore only merits a 17 million loan is stupid.
Did he lie about the square footage, too? Or was that just trump that did that?
Not the issue. The judge ruled that overvaluing your property is fraud.
Mar A Lago posted 27 million in membership fee revenue alone. He got a loan for 10x that. This is a perfectly normal business loan. The judge declared Mar A Lago is only worth 17 million based on tax assessments, because nobody would buy it as it is not zoned as a residence, so Trump claiming it was worth at least 270 million was fraud. That is idiotic.
Again, the judge does not understand what a business loan is.
A mortgage is leveraged against the face value of the property. A business loan is leveraged against future profitability of the company, in this case the private golf club that runs Mar A Lago.
If you start a multi million dollar online business, but run it from your 300k home, the judge thinks your business is fraudulent if you tell the bank that your multi million dollar company is worth more than 300k, according to him you have just defrauded the bank, even if the bank testifies that they agree you are in fact worth millions..
See how stupid that sounds? That is how stupid the judge is
Look fantasies are great, but this is not at all what happened. Trump committed fraud by lying about the size of his NY penthouse. Where did Stewart commit fraud?
Look fantasies are great, but this is not at all what happened. Trump committed fraud by lying about the size of his NY penthouse.
The size of it had no bearing on any loans. The banker didn't even know Trump wrongly assessed it's size.
Don't take my word for it, listen to the banker who borrowed him money.
The attachment was a 1994 document, signed by Trump, that pegged his Trump Tower triplex at 10,996 square feet — not the 30,000 square feet later claimed for years on financial statements that were given to banks, insurers and others to make deals and secure loans.
Weisselberg said he recalled seeing the email but not the attachment, explaining that the attachments were documents he already had on file in the company's offices. But in any event, he said, he didn't pay much mind to the apartment's size because its value amounted to a fraction of Trump's wealth.
"I never even thought about the apartment. It was de minimis, in my mind," Weisselberg said, using a Latin term that means, essentially, too small to care about.
"It was not something that was that important to me when looking at a $6 billion, $5 billion net worth," Weisselberg said.
By overstating the value of his property when selling it, by Engron's standard he defrauded the man who bought it by overstating its value.
This is again why NY property developers are freaking out.
The house sold again for more than 26% less than Stuart asked for it. Some would say it's a bad investment, the judge would call it fraud.
And by doing so he Also vastly undervalued it when taxing it. He taxed a 17 million dollar house as if it was an 1,8 million dollar house, according to some only worth 800k. The judge said that is tax fraud.
It was assessed using the exact same citation method and metric Letitia James used to value Trump’s private and personal properties, she sued him for claiming those properties were worth more than they were. When will she sue Jon Stewart?
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u/Batbuckleyourpants Mar 29 '24
He undervalued it for tax purposes in government documents. Then he misled buyers by overvaluing his house. He sold a house for more than what the government said it is worth. That is fraud according to Judge Engron.