Michael Cohen said Trump undervalued family properties to cheat on taxes (tax fraud) and overvalued them to get more favorable loans and insurance prices. (insurance fraud).
Yeah, he's said a lot of things, and he's a crook.
Cohen is full of it. Trump has been audited and the IRS would deny the undervaluation. A lender or insurer would have a neutral appraisal so the overvalue claim is BS..
Thought of something else regarding the property values, wouldn’t the IRS have picked up on this stuff? Wouldn’t that stuff have been a part of his returns? I’ve never owned a home, so I have no idea.
Doesn't an assessor place a value on the properties for tax purposes?
Real Estate value is tough to determine without a recent arms length transaction.
You believe Michael Cohen lol
"Undervaluing" a property for tax purposes isn't something the property owner can do. The property taxes are based on assessed values, and a person owning a $10 million property doesn't have the power to unilaterally declare that it's worth only $1 and pay just a few pennies in taxes on it.
I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out why anyone would "overvalue" a property for insurance purposes. "Hey, I want to insure my $10 million property for $100 million even though the insurance company will only pay a claim based on a replacement value of $10 million!" -- said no property owner, ever.
And nobody is going to lend money to a property owner based on an appraisal done by anyone other than a third party. "Hey, I'll lend you $75 million on your $10 million property because you say it's worth $100 million!" -- said no lender or investor, ever.
A couple of problems with that argument. The assessor determines a property’s value for tax purposes, not the owner. Second a bank does it’s own appraisal for loan values, it doesn’t accept the owner’s estimate (unless the bank is really stupid).
#14. Michael Cohen is in jail, a liar, shyster, and crook. His credibility is suspect. His jail cell is real.
There are perfectly legal reasons and ways to do this. It isn’t necessarily fraud.
I don’t understand how one undervalues properties for tax fraud.