Former President Donald Trump could owe more than $100 million in taxes as a result of a yearslong Internal Revenue Service investigation into claims of massive losses on his Chicago skyscraper, The New York Times and ProPublica reported Saturday.
The news organizations reported that Trump twice claimed massive financial losses — first in his 2008 tax returns, when he said the building, then mired in debt, was “worthless,” and again after 2010, when he transferred ownership of it to a new partnership. controlled by Trump.
The 2008 claim resulted in Trump reporting losses as high as $651 million for the year, and there is no indication it led to an IRS challenge, media reported. Then in 2010, Trump’s lawyers enabled further claims of losses by moving the Chicago tower to another partnership, “DJT Holdings LLC,” The Times and ProPublica reported.
In the years that followed, other Trump businesses, including golf courses, would be folded into that same partnership — which his lawyers used as a basis to claim even more tax-reducing losses from the Chicago Tower. That move led to the IRS investigation. According to the report, these losses amounted to $168 million over the next ten years.
The outlets calculated that the revision requested by the IRS could result in a tax bill of more than $100 million.
The only public mention of the IRS audit of Trump’s Chicago tower loss claims came in a December 2022 congressional report, which, according to The Times and ProPublica, contained an unexplained reference to the part of the tax law at issue in the case is. That mention, the outlets reported, confirmed that the audit was still ongoing.
“This issue was settled years ago, but only came back to life when my father ran for office. We are confident in our position, which is supported by opinion letters from several tax experts, including the former general counsel of the IRS,” Trump’s son Eric Trump, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, told The Times and ProPublica in a statement . .
For more CNN news and newsletters, create an account at CNN.com
