A New York Supreme Court judge on Friday ordered the Trump Organization to pay a fine of $1.61 million. after a month ago she was found guilty of operating a tax evasion scheme for years.
The group of the Republican billionaire Donald Trump, who aspires to run for president in 2024, He was tried for tax evasion and falsification of accounting statements, with the aim of hiding financial compensation from the tax services of some leaders.
It is the first criminal case for the former president’s family corporation (2017-2021), which includes golf clubs, luxury hotels and real estate.
(You may be interested in: USA: what former President Trump’s tax returns revealed)
Former President of the United States, Donald Trump.
This is the maximum penalty that the Manhattan Prosecutor’s Office had recommended for the sentence, headed by prosecutor Alvin Bragg, who applauded the decision in a statement and considered it “momentous” to set an example for other companies and executives.
“Today, the companies of former President Trump were fined the maximum penalties allowed by law after landmark convictions totaling 17 felonies,” prosecutor Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
The fine is shared almost equally by two divisions of the organization: the Trump Corporation ($810,000) and the Trump Payroll Corporation ($800,000), a smaller number for an organization that moves billions but which is “a stain on the reputation of cunning businessman of the former president now that he aspires to return to the White House”, as the New York Post comments, Trump’s support for years.
tax evasion plot
Two companies in the group, Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation, were accused of having granted economic benefits or in kind to senior executives, hiding them from the tax authorities to avoid paying taxes, between 2005 and 2018.
Among them is a former CFO of the company, Allen Weisselberg, who is very close to Trump, who pleaded guilty to 15 charges and was sentenced Tuesday for the same case to five months in prison and a fine of more than two million dollars. .
(Keep reading: Former President Trump’s tough battle to avoid jail time)
Former President Trump’s companies were fined the maximum penalties allowed
When his sentence was announced, Weisselberg, 75, who had started working in 1973 as an accountant for Trump’s father, left in handcuffs for Rikers Island prison to serve out his sentence.
Lawyers for the Trump Organization have tried for months to insist that the tax evasion scheme was for Weisselberg’s own use and enjoyment, but Friday’s ruling debunks those arguments and makes it clear that the fiscal dealings of the chief financial officer served above all to benefit the organization.
The New York Times newspaper considers that the sentence “exposes a culture that fostered illegality for years and provides political ammunition to Trump’s opponents”, perhaps alluding not only to Democrats, but to those in the Republican Party who want to turn the “Trump page” and foster new leadership.
The Trump Organization expects an even larger civil trial in 2023 on a different case of financial fraud.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
More news
They find an undocumented woman beheaded in the US: they accuse her husband
United States: a special prosecutor will investigate classified Biden documents
#Trump #Organization #sentenced #pay #million #tax #evasion