MEDIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP FAMILY/TRUMP NETWORTH/TRUMP TAXES: “The president claims that his company was built solely through hard work. A 14,000-word investigation by the NYT begs to differ. It found that the Trump Organization owes its success to multimillion-dollar gifts from Fred C. Trump, President Trump’s father, and tax schemes that some experts say may have broken the law. Highlights from the investigation:• His father’s housing empire started paying Mr. Trump during childhood — the equivalent of $200,000 a year in today’s money when he was three.• Mr. Trump has often said that his father lent him only $1 million. He received at least $60.7 million in loans, many never repaid.• Fred Trump grossly undervalued properties that he passed onto his children, dodging hundreds of millions in gift taxes. • The Trumps created a company that inflated the value of equipment purchased for their housing units and passed the difference onto the Trump children. One tax expert said that might have constituted criminal tax fraud. The statute of limitations has passed for potential criminal charges, but the Trump family could face civil fines. New York State’s tax regulator said it has opened an investigation. A lawyer for Mr. Trump has threatened to sue the NYT.”
–NYT Staff, “DealBook Briefing: How Trump Reaped Riches From His Father,” The New York Times online, October 3, 2018