Donald Trump’s company was fined $1.6 million Friday for a scheme in which his top executives dodged personal income taxes on lavish perks — a symbolic, hardly crippling blow to the company.
FILE — A pedestrian passes security barricades in front of Trump Tower on Feb. 17, 2021, in New York. The stiffest penalty Donald Trump’s company could receive when it is sentenced Friday, Jan. 13, by a New York judge for helping its executives dodge taxes is a $1.6 million fine — not even enough to buy a Trump Tower apartment.
The amount imposed by Judge Juan Manuel Merchan was the maximum allowed by law, double the taxes a small group of executives avoided on benefits including rent-free apartments in Trump buildings, luxury cars and private school tuition.Trump himself was not on trial and denied any knowledge of his executives evading taxes illegally. In a statement released after sentencing, the Trump Organization said it did nothing wrong and would appeal.
Outside the courtroom, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, said he wished the law had allowed for a more serious penalty. Over his years as the company’s chief moneyman, Weisselberg had received a rent-free apartment in a Trump-branded building in Manhattan with a view of the Hudson River. He and his wife drove Mercedes-Benz cars, leased by company. When his grandchildren went to an exclusive private school, Trump paid their tuition.
“Allen Weisselberg is a victim,” it said. “He was threatened, intimidated and terrorized. He was given a choice of pleading guilty and serving 90 days in prison or serving the rest of his life in jail -- all of this over a corporate car and standard employee benefits.”The company’s fine will be barely a dent in the bottom line for an enterprise with a global portfolio of golf courses, hotels and development deals.
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