Former US President Donald Trump could owe the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) more than $100 million after claiming questionable tax breaks for his Chicago skyscraper, a thunderous New York Times (NYT) news report suggested on Saturday.
The Chicago Tower, Trump's most recent major construction project completed in 2009, has been bleeding money from the beginning.
But the IRS, according to the NYT report, is accusing Trump of writing off his losses twice: effectively doubling the tax benefits gained from the tower's financial losses.
The newspaper reported that Trump's 2008 tax return claimed the building was “useless” because the debt was too large to turn a profit.
It reported losses of up to $651 million, according to NYT research it conducted in collaboration with ProPublica.
In 2010, according to the report, Trump moved the company that owned the tower to a new company.
“Since he controlled both companies, it was like moving coins from one pocket to another,” the NYT reported.
“Then used the change as justification to declare $168 million in additional losses over the next decade.”
The action has been subject to a years-long, but still unknown, investigation by the IRS that is still ongoing.
