The following exclusive article was posted on the Palm Beach Post website December 21, 2017:
PALM BEACH — Donald Trump’s deal with the town of Palm Beach to turn Mar-a-Lago into a private club hinged on an act of charity crafted to skirt IRS scrutiny and deliver for Trump a seven-figure tax break, a Palm Beach Post investigation has found.
To make sure Trump could get the $5.7 million deduction, America’s future president and his lawyers intentionally left out those details from the written agreement with town officials.
The deal, which took shape in public meetings over several months in 1993, provides the best look at Trump’s largest form of charity: an obscure and controversial land-use deduction known as a preservation easement.
What did Trump do?
He donated control of certain “critical features” at Mar-a-Lago such as art objects and even vegetation to a nonprofit to assure the town that neither he nor a future owner could change them. But he got something in return.
Continue reading “Trump’s Mar-a-Lago tax deal veiled from IRS review”