NYT accuses Trump of engaging in suspect tax schemes

Washington: A top American daily has alleged that President Donald Trump was engaged in suspect tax schemes as he reaped riches from his father Fred C Trump, the legendary New York City builder.

In its investigative lead story, The New York Times said that Trump, who assumed office of the President of the United States in January, 2017, won the presidency proclaiming himself as a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, Fred Trump, provided almost no financial help.

“But The Times’ investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Mr Trump received the equivalent today of at least USD 413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day,” the daily claimed. Much of this money, the daily claimed, came to Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes.

“He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents, records and interviews show. Records indicate that Mr Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more,” the daily alleged.

“He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings,” it said. adding that these maneuvers met with little resistance from the Internal Revenue Service.

The White House expressed its outrage over the news report and demanded an apology from NYT. “Fred Trump has been gone for nearly 20 years and it’s sad to witness this misleading attack against the Trump family by the failing New York Times,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said.

“Many decades ago the IRS reviewed and signed off on these transactions. The New York Times’ and other media outlets’ credibility with the American people is at an all-time low because they are consumed with attacking the president and his family 24/7 instead of reporting the news.

“The truth is the market is at an all-time high, unemployment is at a 50-year low, taxes for families and businesses have been cut, wages are up, farmers and workers are empowered from better trade deals, and America’s military is stronger than ever, yet the New York Times can rarely find anything positive about the president and his tremendous record of success to report,” she said.

“Perhaps another apology from the New York Times, like the one they had to issue after they got the 2016 election so embarrassingly wrong, is in order,” Sanders said.