President Trump's infamous $1 million loan may have sparked his real estate business, but the $413 million he reportedly received from his father's own empire probably helped too.
Far from the measly operation Trump has claimed, Fred Trump's real estate business reportedly shunned taxes and engaged in fraud as he funneled millions into his children's pockets, a massive investigation by The New York Times reveals. The president himself has reportedly reaped enormous benefits — far more than his siblings, in fact, because he helped his parents "sharply reduc[e] the tax bill when properties were transferred to him and his siblings," the Times says.
For nearly all his life, Trump has been accruing payments from his father's business in a trust fund that's still growing to this day, the Times' analysis of tax returns and financial records indicates. To minimize taxes as Fred Trump passed that money to his children, he reportedly made them stakeholders in a shell company, All County Building Supply & Maintenance. Fred and his wife Mary "transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million," the Times says. But records show they apparently only ended up paying about $52.2 million.
To reap bigger profits, Fred Trump also allegedly undervalued his real estate holdings via "dubious tax schemes" often orchestrated by Trump himself, the Times says. And in one case, Fred Trump reportedly used All County invoices to make it seem as if he'd made improvements on a rent-stabilized apartment complex he owned. Payments for maintenance work from All County were actually going to his children, but the state would still approve rent increases.
A lawyer for Trump denied all the Times' findings as "100 percent false and highly defamatory." Still, they do raise questions about Trump's never-released tax returns.
Read it all — and watch an astounding video illustrating Trump's gain — at The New York Times. Kathryn Krawczyk
British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday pushed back on calls for a second referendum on Brexit, the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.
May particularly condemned remarks from former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said this week a new vote should be considered if "none of the other options work." May accused Blair of "seek[ing] to undermine our negotiations by advocating for a second referendum," arguing "Parliament has a democratic duty to deliver what the British people voted for."
May's proposed Brexit deal with the EU has stalled, lacking support to pass a House of Commons vote. Bonnie Kristian
The North Korean government on Sunday issued a typically dramatic statement condemning the United States' sanction regime and suggesting denuclearization plans are in jeopardy.
Pyongyang accused the U.S. State Department of being "bent on bringing [North Korea]-U.S. relations back to the status of last year which was marked by exchanges of fire," warning that additional U.S. sanctions would be America's "greatest miscalculation" and would "block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever."
This comes as Pyongyang observes the seventh anniversary of the death of former leader Kim Jong Il and the rise to power of his son, current leader Kim Jong Un. Bonnie Kristian
Negotiators representing nearly 200 nations in Katowice, Poland, on Saturday agreed to universal greenhouse gas emissions limits intended to mitigate global climate change.
"It is not easy to find agreement on a deal so specific and technical," said Polish economist Michal Kurtyka, who is leading the United Nations negotiations. "Through this package you have made a thousand little steps forward together," he told the assembled delegates. "You can feel proud."
U.S. negotiators sought to label coal a possible source of clean energy but also pushed for transparency and rules which apply equally to all participant nations. "Overall, the U.S. role here has been somewhat schizophrenic — pushing coal and dissing science on the one hand, but also working hard in the room for strong transparency rules," Elliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions told The Associated Press. "[T]he U.S. pushed harder than nearly anyone else for transparency rules that put all countries under the same system, and it's largely succeeded." Bonnie Kristian
