The New York state tax authorities are going to exhaust all means to find all possible grounds for a case against the Trump family if its investigations lead to concrete evidence of tax fraud as alleged in an exhaustive report published by The New York Times on Oct. 2.
The supposed tax maneuverings revealed in The Times report happened more than 20 years ago and would expectedly no longer qualified for a criminal probe. The federal law only allows prosecutors to file criminal charges in tax fraud cases that took place six years ago.
Indeed, tax experts say the Internal Revenue Service would probably skip audit into the fraud tax allegations against U.S. President Donald Trump because it took place more than two decades ago.
At the heart of the matter is a report from Times which found that Trump received an estimated $143 million from his father's, Fred Trump, real estate business through series of tax evasions that took place in the 1990s.
The Times report detailed tactics that Trump and his siblings allegedly performed to avoid paying appropriate taxes to the government. One such tactic is that Trump and his siblings allegedly set up a fake corporation where they hide some of the properties they received from their parents. Trump has also purportedly aided his father to process fake tax deductions. He also devised mechanisms to undervalue his parents' real estate so as not to pay millions of taxes when he and his siblings inherited the properties.
Interestingly, the Times observed that the suspicious tactics were seemingly overlooked by the IRS. For one, Trump's parents moved more than $1 billion in wealth to their children. The amount would have generated a tax bill at an average of $550 million since there should have been a 55 percent tax rate imposed on gifts and inheritances. The Times found that the Trumps only paid $52.2 million or only about 5 percent of what they should have paid for taxes.
On Oct. 3, James Gazzale, spokesman for the Department of Taxation and Finance, told Bloomberg that it is reviewing the allegations in the New York Times article. The department is pursuing all avenues of investigation since the allegations do not qualify for criminal charges.
The most that can be filed against the Trump family are civil cases asking them to pay fees for tax evasions. Unlike criminal charges, civil law has no limitations in pursuing civil tax cases that took place decades ago.
The Trump family can be asked to pay millions in federal back taxes, interests, and civil penalties if found guilty of deliberately avoiding paying taxes.
Trump's lawyer has since denied the Times report saying it was "100 percent false and highly defamatory."
In a press conference at the White House, Sarah Sanders has also described the Times report as "false attack based on an old recycled news story." She said a number of Trump's taxes are still under audit but she was unsure whether these taxes include the ones from the '90s or the ones referred to in the Times article.
Asked if the White House will be willing to provide the public with any of the president's tax returns, Sanders said she is "not aware of any plans to do so."
