How Trump’s Top Executive Dodged Paying Taxes For Years: Report

A top executive for the Trump Organization had allegedly redirected his salary to tuition and other unaccounted corporate perks to evade taxes, indictment records show. Now, he's being booted out of the company's subsidiaries.

Allen Weisselberg, 73, was charged with 15 felony counts, including grand larceny and tax fraud, for evading income taxes by allegedly concealing the salaries of top Trump Organization executives, including himself. He is accused of understating his income by at least $1.76 million from 2005 to 2017.

According to the 25-page indictment, the 73-year-old chief financial officer redirected part of his salary to cover tuition payments of more than $50,000 a year for each of his two grandchildren.

The payments, which were made to the Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School, began in 2012, according to his son Barry Weisselberg’s deposition to Clifford Petroske, his ex-wife Jennifer’s divorce lawyer.

Manhattan prosecutors also revealed that former President Donald Trump signed the checks that Jennifer would deliver to her children’s school.

“From 2012 through 2017, and as part of the scheme to defraud, Trump Corporation personnel, including Weisselberg, arranged for tuition expenses for Weisselberg’s family members to be paid by personal checks drawn on the account of and signed by Donald J. Trump,” the indictment read.

“Weisselberg intentionally caused the tuition payments to be omitted from his personal tax returns, despite knowing that those payments represented taxable income and were treated as compensation by the Trump Corporation in internal records,” it continued.

In a 2010 joint tax return, Barry, who also works for the Trump Organization, and Jennifer only listed $132,811 in wages, salaries and tips despite living in a premium real estate in Manhattan.

In the indictment, it was revealed that the Trump Organization had paid for the 100 Central Park South property for six years, from 2005 to 2011, as corporate compensation.

“It was a corporate apartment, so we didn’t have rent,” Barry told his former wife’s lawyer, according to The Daily Beast.

However, according to the indictment, the rent is part of his compensation is therefore taxable.

“The value of the lodging provided to Weisselberg’s family member constituted income to that family member, and the defendants were required to report that income and to pay withholding taxes on it to the federal, state and local tax authorities. The defendants intentionally failed to do so.”

The Trump Organization has since removed Allen Weisselberg as a director of at least 40 different subsidiaries, including the Trump International Golf Club Scotland Limited, Trump Payroll Corp., Trump International Hotels Management and Mar-a-Lago Club, according to publicly filed corporation documents, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Despite the recent termination, he is expected to remain as the company’s financial officer, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“Allen Weisselberg’s at the company. He’s got a job. He’s going to remain at the company,” a source told The Washington Post.