DEAD OR ALIVE - WILL TRUMP PAY $2B BACK-TAX?

"CORONAVIRUS IS FAKE NEWS - A CHINESE PLOT"

1st OCT 2020:- (This tax debate has been interrupted by the news that The President and the First Lady have Covid-19) 

 2ND OCT 2020 - SKY NEWS 

Trump coronavirus: Why president's age and physical condition put him at 'highest risk' from COVID-19 - Based on his age and his most recent physical tests, the president is considered to be at higher risk (90 times more fatal) of serious complications. By Richard Williams, news reporter and Ashish Joshi, health correspondents. 

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First  - an ordinary New York citizen investigated by the IRS : 

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-taxes-cheated-michael-cohen-irs-audit-b744490.html 

i HAVE BEEN PIECING TOGETHER TRUMP’S INCOME. iT IS FAR TOO COMPLEX FOR A QUICK LOOK & OVERVIEW. One report says he had/has 500 companies. BUT HERE ARE A COUPLE OF INTERESTING PIECES OF THE JIG-SAW PUZZLE. trump SEEMS TO HAVE BENEFITTED FROM ny IVY-LEAGUE PROPERTY OWNING CONTACTS IN VORNADO – GOING BACK DECADES. HOW HE BUILDS UP AND OFFSETS HIS ALLEGED TAX-LOSSES IS A MYSTERY THAT THE IRS MIGHT RESOLVE. 

(WHY THIS IS TYPING IN CAPS – IS ALSO A MYSTERY 

New York Times 29^th Sep 2020 : THE PRESIDENT’S TAXES

Trump Paid $750 in Federal Income Taxes in 2017. Here’s the Math.

Figures drawn from President Trump’s tax-return data show how that number was calculated.

By Russ Buettner, Mike McIntire, Susanne Craig and Keith Collins

·         Sept. 29, 2020

The small amount of federal income taxes President Trump paid in both 2016 and 2017 — just $750 each year — has become the focus of much attention since it was revealed in a New York Times investigation. The figures below, drawn from Mr. Trump’s tax-return data for 2017, show how his accountants arrived at that figure for one of those years.

Donald J. Trump’s income in 2017

 

373,629

Wages

Includes pro-rated presidential salary and small amounts for film and television appearances.

+

6,758,494

Taxable interest

Almost $6 million of this is interest income from his investment with Vornado Realty Trust.

+

21,984

Ordinary dividends

Includes $13,123 from trusts established by his parents and $7,000 from Deutsche Bank.

+

7,562,038

Capital gain and other gains

Profits from the sale of property or other investments.

+

84,351

Pensions and annuities

Includes a Screen Actors Guild Producers pension of $77,808.

–

15,313,785

Losses on his businesses

Losses after deducting expenses from the $536.6 million in gross receipts at Mr. Trump’s core businesses.

–

12,306,111

Other income

Losses from prior years, counted with other income, further dragged the total into the red.

–$12,819,400

Total

income

By The New York Times

Although Mr. Trump donates his salary to the government, it is subject to income tax along with his other earnings. But because Mr. Trump’s overall income was negative, he did not owe regular income tax on any of it.

He was, however, still subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax, a parallel tax system that reduces the benefit of some deductions, preventing wealthy people from erasing their tax liability altogether. Most significantly, the A.M.T. formula disallowed $45 million in losses that Mr. Trump had carried over from prior years.

But tax laws gave him one more line on which to reduce the A.M.T. Mr. Trump had $22.7 million in General Business Credit, much of it carried forward from prior years, that he could apply. The credit is a smorgasbord of tax incentives and givebacks to business owners, and in Mr. Trump’s case they ranged from credits of $322,926 for Social Security and Medicare taxes paid on employee tips to at least $1.5 million related to rehabilitating the Old Post Office in Washington.

The business credit cannot be used to get a refund; it can only be applied against taxes owed. Mr. Trump had more than enough to cancel out his $7,435,857 tax bill. But on the Form 3800 for the General Business Credit, his accountants subtracted $750 from his allowable credit. Why they did that is not clear. But the result was a total federal income tax liability of $750.

Mr. Trump’s tax bill in 2017

 

$7,435,857

Alternative Minimum Tax

–

7,435,107

General Business Credit

$750

Total income

tax due

By The New York Times

The President’s Taxes

 

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Trump’s NY Property holdings seem to be via VORNADO REALTY TRUST – which pays him $6.7 million p.a.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vornado_Realty_Trust

Vornado Realty Trust
Type	Public company
Traded as	NYSE: VNO S&P 500 Index component
ISIN	US9290421091
Industry	Real estate investment trust
Predecessor	Two Guys
Founded	1982; 38 years ago Maryland, U.S.
Headquarters	New York City, New York ,  U.S.
Key people	Steven Roth (Chairman & CEO) Michael J. Franco (CIO) Joseph Macnow (CFO)
Products	Office buildings
Revenue	$1.924 billion (2019)
Net income	$3.334 billion (2019)
Total assets	$18.287 billion (2019)
Total equity	$7.310 billion (2019)
Number of employees	4,008 (2019)
Website	www.vno.com

 

Vornado Realty LP

Vornado Realty L.P. operates as a real estate investment trust. The Company offers energy management, BMS building, tenanat,

construction management, as well as engineering, janitorial, security, and architectural maintenance services.

Vornado Realty serves clients in the United States.

SECTOR

Financials

INDUSTRY

Real Estate

SUB-INDUSTRY

REIT

FOUNDED

10/02/1996

ADDRESS

888 7th Avenue New York, NY 10106 United States

PHONE

1-212-894-7000

WEBSITE

www.vno.com

NO. OF EMPLOYEES

--

Executives

NAME/TITLE

Mark Falanga

President: Merchandise Mart

 

Board Members

NAME/COMPANY

Steven D Roth

Vornado Realty Trust

Michael D Fascitelli

Imperial Cos LLC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Fascitelli

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Roth  - Trump’s partner in Vornado “largest real estate owner in NY”.

 

Notable properties owned by the company include the following:^[1]

·         New York Marriott Marquis (Retail & signage)

·         1540 Broadway (Retail & signage)

·         666 Fifth Avenue (Retail)

·         731 Lexington Avenue

·         770 Broadway

·         888 7th Avenue

·         Crowne Plaza Hotel, Times Square (Retail & office)

·         Fuller Building

·         One Penn Plaza

·         Rego Center

·         Hotel Pennsylvania

The company also owns:

·         70% of 555 California Street in San Francisco, California (30% is owned by affiliates of Donald Trump)

·         100% of Merchandise Mart in Chicago, Illinois

·         32.4% of Alexander's, which owns 731 Lexington Avenue

 

 

PS – Extraneous note from Wikipedia.  Unlucky or what?  “Silverstein signed a lease for the World Trade Center in April 2001,^[13] 5 months before the September 11 attacks.”

***************

John – This is from the Wikipedia article you sent to me:

 – “Schron paid $705.6 million for a portfolio of about 6,000 outer-borough apartments from Donald Trump.^[2] “

 The apartment complex was built in 1963–1964 by Fred Trump, the father of Donald Trump.^[1][3] The complex, built on the site of the former Culver Depot,^[4] was designed by architect Morris Lapidus.^[2]

The construction cost US$70 million.^[5] It was supported by the New York State Housing Finance Agency through public bonds issued by the state of New York, coupled with tax exemption.^[6] Five out of the seven buildings were part of the Mitchell-Lama Housing Program until 2007.^[3]

It is the only Trump building complex named for Fred Trump rather than his son Donald.^[7]

This is the Trump Wikipedia entry – quite different from the one you selected.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trump_Organization

AND

“How many apartments did Fred Trump own?

It grew to build and manage single-family houses in Queens, barracks and garden apartments for U.S. Navy personnel near major shipyards along the East Coast, and more than 27,000 apartments in New York City.”

 So – John, selling off 6,000 flats was a small part of the empire that Fred built. Donald got total control. I guess he keeps total control. Who are the other billionaire Trumps? Correct – there are none. - Noel

 

Saturday, 1 September 2018

TRUMP'S $3B BACK-TAX - TO REVIVE THE RUST-BELTS?

TRUMP - MANAFORT - TAX-EVASION

Thursday, 22 March 2018

MICHAEL COHEN & TRUMP. TAX AND WIRE-FRAUD?

WILL TRUMP RISK "OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE" AND WIRE-FRAUD?

Monday, 30 January 2017

TRUMP - MUELLER - ARRESTS

COMMUTE COSTS £6,500 P.A. or WFH

IS COMMUTING PRODUCTIVE OR EXHAUSTING? 

"GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY COMMUTE." Silly, deluded economists and a few crazed employers want to ban Telework. The majority of new teleworkers want to continue working from home. 

1st Sept 2020: The inept UK Government is now reversing Covid-19 protection advice and is urging 27 million workers to quit Working From Home (WFH) - and to crowd into city centres. The crazy HMG rationale is that petrol-stations, buses, trains, taxis, coffee-shops, nail-bars, pubs, clubs, gyms and other amusements are going bust. Not least - the owners of city-offices and commercial premises have no tenants and are in danger of going bust; unless they change the use of their buildings. Of equal weight, BP, Shell and Big-Oil sales have slumped and new car sales are decimated. UK private pensions rely heavily on dividends from the oil companies. 


LETTER TO THE GUARDIAN: You report that empty city centres need revival by re-establishing commuting, for example “Pret a Manger cuts almost 2,900 UK jobs as sales plummet” – Guardian on-line 27^th August 20. Interviewees on BBC News today argue on one-hand for Pret, who seek full restoration of commuting – on the other for Siemens, who will rotate 75% who remain working at home and 25% in socially distanced offices. Both need to redesign their business-models. To re-boot the UK economy and create real lasting wealth, we ought to immediately convert the empty town and city premises to homes. We calculate that from 3 to 6 million new, quality homes, with telework-offices, can be created in locations already fully supplied with roads and services infrastructure; quickly creating several million building jobs. The idea that millions of ex-commuters, now happy home-workers, must waste 2 to 4 hours a day and spend an average of £5,000 a year on travel, to rescue city sandwich shops – costing the workers another £5 per day, is very bad economics. The thousands of new High-Street-Village-Families will ultimately compensate the landlords, and restore Pret and similar service businesses – without the polluting, costly, gruelling commute. The national energy savings will be immense.  

Noel Hodson, Oxford

http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/projectmanager.htm 

British workers spend 492 days of their lives travelling into work

6 Sep 2019 - Britain's commuters spend 492 days travelling to work at a cost of £37,399 over a lifetime; One in five (21%) say their commute has become less reliable over ... While many may dream of rolling out of bed and straight into the ..

Of the 27 million workers across England, by far the most usual method of travel to work is car; just 11% take the train. However, the share of train commuters has been increasing and is up from 1.6 million commuters (7%) in 2002 to 2.9 million at the last count.

The sane alternative to herding 27 million workers into towns and cities is to convert the empty buildings into homes. From 3 million to 6 million new homes, with telework offices, can be built.  There are of course, two sides to every story. 

How working from home affects family life

Letters

Noel Hodson and his wife Pauline Hodson point out that WFH has its downsides

‘It is extraordinary that in an editorial exploring the pros and cons of working from home, there is no mention of the impact on family life,’ writes Pauline Hodson. 

The Guardian Published onThu 6 Aug 2020 18.07 BST

Re your editorial (The Guardian view on empty offices: goodbye to all that?, 4 August) on working from home (WFH), in 1992 I was commissioned to edit the book Teleworking Explained, which analysed and promoted the socioeconomics of not commuting to work. My colleagues have just formed a new group, Resurrect the High Street, to encourage the conversion of redundant commercial premises into 6 million new, good-quality family homes with home-telework offices or local hubs. From 30 years of case studies, we can assure employers, employees, families, economists, environmentalists and property owners that WFH is hugely beneficial and will, as you say, transform all nations and clean the air we breathe.

On the downsides, the most neglected issue is family life. My wife wrote Bringing Home the Electronic Baby in 1995, a psychotherapeutic analysis of the impact on families. One of the earliest recorded cases was of the Canadian prime minister Lester Pearson retiring to work from home. His wife, Maryon, commented: “I married him for better or worse. I didn’t marry him for lunch.” The disruption to the home is significant. As you say, we must plan for the downsides.
Noel Hodson
Oxford

• It is extraordinary that in an editorial exploring the pros and cons of working from home, there is no mention of the impact on family life.

As a couple psychotherapist I see the stress, albeit currently on Skype, that working from home can bring. It seems that neither employers nor employees – nor indeed the couple – take seriously the impact of this new way of working. Consequently no allowances or understanding are brought to the new situation and therefore no emotional or psychological help is sought or given.

I believe there is an unconscious expectation that “home”, just like “mother”, can cope with anything and adapt to any situation, but just like the office our home is an institution, and as such has a culture and adheres to a set of rules and boundaries that need to be recognised and taken into account if working from home is to be successful.
Pauline Hodson
Oxford

PRACTICAL WAYS FORWARD:

The International Flexible Working Association

Directors: Ayes Amewudah, Marcus Hickman, Noel Hodson, Richard Nissen

Piltdown Lodge, Piltdown, East Sussex, TN22 3XJ

Cellphone: 07957 622545 E-mail: ayes@amuda.co.uk

RESURRECT OUR HIGH-STREETS - DISCUSSION PAPER

The current situation:

COVID-19: May 2020. The decline in people travelling to work and for family or leisure reasons is not yet calculated but common experience and business statistics indicate that passenger traffic this month is 80% less that before Covid-19 took hold.

The reports of traffic reducing to 1955 levels indicate a fall from 32 million licenced cars travelling 7,500 miles per annum to about to 4.5 million cars. Similar reductions have occurred on buses and trains. People are staying at home – and where possible are working at and from home. (WFH)

From our own statistics of workers who stay at home and use IT to communicate, prior to the Covid-19 Lockdown about 4 million worked in this way at home “on any one workday”. Approximately 12.5% of the workforce. Add to that the 80% of new WFH (work-from-home) workers, which is 16 million, and it totals 28.5 million in voluntary or imposed lockdown. Only 4 to 5 million continue to commute daily.

Many business leaders have commented publicly on the positive benefits that they have seen, first-hand, as a result of their employees having to work from home during this lockdown. In particular, the well documented productivity gains which can be achieved from flexible working.

Employees have been able to effectively demonstrate to their managers that they can effectively manage the additional conflicts, which can arise when working at home, and deliver on time.

The current lockdown has also placed a further strain on the following two challenges which government, local authorities, town planners and property developers are trying to address:

Provide more affordable homes inside and outside of cities.

Restore High Street shopping and office work.

We see opportunities to collate and analyse the positives from the current lockdown and use them to rapidly rethink new ways to address these.

 The opportunity

As lockdown lifts, over the coming weeks, employers will have to meet the additional cost of implementing new government guidelines to minimise the spread of COVID 19 in the workplace. For example: It is likely we will see the implementation of one-way stairways, deployment of automatic hand sanitising dispensers and flexible working hours or and staff rotation. These costs could be minimised with the implementation of better facilities for employees to live and work locally in a more flexible way or live closer to the office.

The average space occupied by a worker is 250 sq. feet. (23.2 sq. metres.) Multiply by 28.5 million WFH workers = 7,125,000,000 sq. feet or 7.1 Bn sq. ft  (662 million sq. metres). Average family homes plus a telework office are about 1,200 sq. ft; so, the recently emptied space is equivalent to 6 million home units. This space is already built – requiring conversion to create homes+offices.

Empty retail property could be converted into homes (with a home office) and into Telework hubs, which would have all the additional facilities that employees need to work efficiently away from their main offices. For example, they should have telephone integration and reception facilities, meeting rooms, workstations, state of the art video conferencing suits, postal and courier services mass printing, photocopying and IT support services. The work-space in these hubs could be rented by businesses on a per hour, per week or per year basis. Employees could live locally and work flexibly between their home, local high street hub, or any other high street hub and their main central office.

Sample Some of the benefits for to central government and local authorities:

High streets would be rejuvenated, as a result of the additional homes and the telework hubs – enabling increases in spending locally.

Increased local jobs (building and maintaining homes – plus eateries) and a greater sense of community.

More homes could be provided rapidly in town centres, through the conversion, using less green belt land.

Cleaner air in the towns and cities – promoting better health.

Less commuting and congestion -

Our goal

The International Flexible Working Association aims to provide government and local authorities with well-researched proposals that will enable developers to convert local empty business units into family homes – with telework offices and telework hubs in High Streets. This will provide millions of new homes, revive High Streets day and night with families, support the businesses that remain – and, of equal importance, greatly reduce commuting and business-travel – and preserving the clean and quiet environment we are all now aware of due to the Covid-19 Lockdown.

What we are seeking

The founder members of The International Flexible Working Association will apply for government grants to make a public study, to create partnerships with builders, architects, planners and finance houses, and to put the economic facts to mortgage companies for the provision of family finance to buy the converted homes. We have development companies standing by to deliver action-this-day.

Our credentials

The International Flexible Working Association’s founder members:

Richard Nissen invented the concept of the Virtual Office in the 1990s, set up a consultancy and has lectured on how to implement working from home and flexible working.  Advances in technology have  made this much easier.  However, the importance of the human dimension covering how employees feel and how to manage remote workers to promote productivity is paramount.

Data used to compile this initial discussion document:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/coronavirusandhomeworkingintheuklabourmarket/2019

#Pre-Covid: ONS : Of the 32.6 million in employment, around 1.7 million people reported working mainly from home, with around 4.0 million working from home in the week prior to being interviewed for the survey.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/apr/03/uk-road-travel-falls-to-1955-levels-as-covid-19-lockdown-takes-hold-coronavirus-traffic

#UK road travel falls to 1955 levels as Covid-19 lockdown takes hold

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/10/more-than-2400-shops-lost-from-top-500-uk-high-streets-in-2018-banks
# Almost 2,500 shops lost from top 500 UK high streets in 2018

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-45720960 

#About 24,000 commercial properties in London that could be turned into temporary housing or workspaces are lying empty, a report has found.

http://digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/214/reader/reader.html?social#!preferred/0/package/214/pub/214/page/89/article/38453

#Workers eye a permanent flight from the office

Appendix – For further qualification and or quantification as part of the study

Obvious benefits of lock down

CLEAN AIR – Bringing major health savings.

QUIET STREETS – Bringing major health savings

FEW if any ROAD ACCIDENTS – Bringing major health benefits.

REWILDING – Eco-benefits are widely reported.

PRODUCTIVITY – All sensible studies from 1992 to date show 10% to 50% increases.

BETTER WORK-LIFE BALANCE – 70% 50% want to continue WFH.

MASSIVE SAVINGS OF FUEL AND VEHICLE IMPORTS.

NEW HOMES – About 3 million new-homes if 50% remain WFH.

VIGOROUS HIGH STREET ECONOMIES – Due to family residents.

LOW COMMUTING – Most work at home.

How to keep the benefits

CONVERT THE EMPTY SPACE This work will employ millions of UK residents.

CHANGE BUSINESS RATES TO DOMESTIC RATES. Business rate are failing fast.

MORTGAGES FOR THE NEW UNITS. Occupied by productive workers.

TREAT THE CONVERTED AREAS AS TELEVILLGES. Pleasant family areas.

INVITE TOP ARCHITECTS & DEVELOPERS. E.g. Docklands developments.

RESTORE BANK BRANCHES and POST OFFICES – Village scale

LATEST BROADBAND – Empower and fund BT. Ensure global reach.

EDUCATE ALL THE WORKERS IN I.T. Empower the Open University.

CONCLUSION

The benefits of clean-air and quiet-streets will be maintained. High Streets will be useful day and night, seven days a week. The blight of deserted town and city centres after 6pm and massive commuting crowds will vanish. The new WFH residents will create and support local facilities and local commerce.

HM GOV TRAVEL REPORT

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/661933/tsgb-2017-report-summaries.pdfhttps://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/661933/tsgb-2017-report-summaries.pdf