[newzjunkey]

Weisselberg was accused of receiving compensation "unreported or misreported" to the tax authorities, namely benefits such as a company car and a company apartment in New York City.

Why do well compensated people do this? They’re not going to miss the money.

[Jeff Chandler]

Why do well compensated people do this?

What makes you think he broke the law at all?

[Leaning Right]

> Why do well compensated people do this? <

I don’t know how honest this guy is. But there are something like 100,000 federal laws and regulations. You or I might have broken a few this week without even knowing it.

It’s also worth mentioning that the tax laws are so convoluted that ask five tax advisers for a tax opinion, and you’re likely to get five different answers.

[pnut22]

This may be a dumb question but if the company car was used solely to do business and the apartment was owned by the company and the tenant was staying there because of serving the business would it be taxable?

[pierrem15]

It's a matter of interpreting the tax law. Say an exec has a house in Connecticut but works in Manhattan. He needs to work late, so the company rents a nice apartment to stay in. Say he and the family occasionally use it on weekends when visiting New York.

Is the cash equivalent of the apartment rent "taxable income" or not? All of it, or only when the family stays over on non-work days? How about a driver and car to commute? Taxable non-deductible commute expenses or legitimate business cost?

There are a thousand ambiguities the authorities can use like this to nail execs at big companies. It's abuse of prosecutorial discretion. And there is no way this guy did his own taxes. So all of this got past trained tax accountants.