Citing an extensive analysis by valuation and accounting experts, James' office found that Trump's net worth in any given year between 2011 and 2021 was overstated by $1.9 billion to $3.6 billion.
(“Trump overstated net worth by up to $3.6 billion each year, NY attorney general alleges in new filing” — CNBC.com; PUBLISHED FRI, SEP 8 2023 9:38 AM EDT; UPDATED FRI, SEP 8 2023 1:12 PM EDT)
OK — So I will ask this question (rhetorically) one last time …
How the hell does the State of New York know he overstated his net worth if it didn’t know his equity stake in the properties they would need to establish his net worth?
Thanks, but I already saw that report, or several other similar ones. But you simply don’t need to know equity values to make that estimate. And isn’t that a incredibly huge range to list (which could be 50 to 100% wrong), if they actually knew his equity stakes?
So I will ask this question (rhetorically) one last time … How the hell does the State of New York know he overstated his net worth if it didn’t know his equity stake in the properties
And you know I appreciate you, and our back and forth, as we usually either reach the same conclusion, or are better for it anyway. So I’ll answer for the third time, at least, and even give some examples to make it easy.
So let’s say that Trump overstated the square footage of his penthouse by 3 times, as supposedly proven, and due to that, alone, he overestimated the value of that property by 3 times. And let’s say he estimated it at $60 million, but since it was overestimated in size by 3x, then it’s possibly only really worth $20 million. So the court might estimate he overinflated the value by $40 million. Did they need to know equity to calculate that? No.
Then let’s say he estimated the value of Mar-a-Lago at $200 million, but the court estimated it was only worth $20 million. Independent of whether those numbers are right, by either side, the court-estimated misevaluation is $180 million dollars. Did they need to know his actual equity to determine that? No.
Do you see a pattern here, where it’s not necessary to know the equity values in his properties, to determine they may have been overinflated in his reported statements of value?
So unless you have any actual proof they incorporated equity ownership into their calculations of overvaluation, it’s more likely that they don’t know his exact equity, as is regularly discussed admitted by experts on this subject. They even had a guy on some TV channel last night who even wrote a book about trying to determine what Trump’s actual wealth and equity in these properties are, and he said Trump guards it like Fort Knox and he didn’t think even the prosecutors knew.
But I keep an open mind, and am more than happy to admit when I’m wrong, because I’m only searching for the truth. It just has to be presented to me before I believe it, and so far all the evidence is there’s extreme mystery around Trump’s true wealth, and the DA did not need to know that in order to estimate him overvaluing his properties by certain amounts.