Washington, United States

Two separate New York state fraud investigations into President Donald Trump and his businesses, one criminal and one civil, have expanded to include tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees, some of which appear to have gone to Ivanka Trump, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Advertisment

The inquiries — a criminal investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., and a civil one by state Attorney General Letitia James — are being conducted independently. But both offices issued subpoenas to the Trump Organization in recent weeks for records related to the fees, the people said.

Also read| Donald Trump to address APEC summit a day after China's Xi Jinping

The subpoenas were the latest steps in the two investigations of the Trump Organization, and underscore the legal challenges awaiting the president when he leaves office in January. There is no indication that his daughter is a focus of either inquiry, which the Trump Organization has derided as politically motivated.

Advertisment

The development follows a recent New York Times examination of more than two decades of Donald Trump’s tax records, which found that he had paid little or no federal income taxes in most years, largely because of his chronic business losses.

Among the revelations was that Trump reduced his taxable income by deducting about $26 million in fees to unidentified consultants as a business expense on numerous projects between 2010 and 2018.

Also read| Donald Trump asks judge to declare him winner in Pennsylvania

Advertisment

Some of those fees appear to have been paid to Ivanka Trump, The Times found. On a 2017 disclosure she filed when joining the White House as a presidential adviser, she reported receiving payments from a consulting company she co-owned, totaling $747,622, that exactly matched consulting fees claimed as tax deductions by the Trump Organization for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, British Columbia.

The subpoenas were focused on fees paid to the firm on her disclosures, TTT Consulting LLC, and represented just a portion of the $26 million, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The name of the firm appears to be a reference to Ivanka Trump and other members of her family.

Ivanka Trump was an executive officer of the Trump companies that made the payments, meaning she appears to have been treated as a consultant while also working for the company. While companies can deduct professional fees, the Internal Revenue Service requires that consulting arrangements be market-based and reasonable, as well as “ordinary and necessary” to running a business.

Also read| Ivanka Trump is narcissistic and obsessed with status, like Donald: Former friend

Alan Garten, general counsel for the Trump Organization, said in a statement that “this is just the latest fishing expedition in an ongoing attempt to harass the company.”

“Everything was done in strict compliance with applicable law and under the advice of counsel and tax experts,” he added. “All applicable taxes were paid and no party received any undue benefit.”

The IRS has sometimes rejected attempts to write off consulting fees if they were meant to avoid taxes and did not reflect arm's-length business relationships. It is not known if the IRS has ever questioned the Trump Organization about the practice. The tax benefit to Donald Trump from deducting the fees on his companies’ federal returns would also be reflected on his New York returns, making it of possible interest to the state.

A tax adviser who has worked with the Trump Organization said that such consulting fees were not uncommon.

Also read| Donald Trump's daughter-in-law, Lara, may run for Senate in North Carolina

The offices of the district attorney and the attorney general declined to comment. Ivanka Trump did not respond to requests for comment but said on Twitter after publication that “there was no tax benefit whatsoever.”

Few details have been publicly disclosed about the district attorney’s investigation, the only known active criminal case involving Donald Trump. Vance’s office began the inquiry more than two years ago, initially focusing on the Trump Organization’s role in hush money paid during the 2016 presidential campaign to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film actress who claimed to have had an affair with Trump.

The investigation has been stalled since last fall, after the president filed a lawsuit to block a subpoena for his tax returns and other financial records.

Also read| 'Don't be embarrassing': Czech President asks Donald Trump to step down

The legal fight is before the U.S. Supreme Court for a second time, with a ruling expected soon. Prosecutors have suggested in court filings that their investigation has expanded far beyond the hush money and is focused on a number of potential financial crimes, including insurance and bank-related fraud, tax evasion and grand larceny.

Trump has said the investigation is part of “the greatest witch hunt in history.” Both Vance and James are Democrats.

James’ civil investigation is focused on the Trump Organization’s business practices, though she can make a criminal referral and can seek authority from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration or the state comptroller to bring charges on her own.

Her inquiry began last year in March, after Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer, told Congress that Trump had inflated his assets in financial statements to secure bank loans and understated them elsewhere to reduce his tax bill. In August, the attorney general’s office asked a judge to force the president’s son Eric Trump to testify in the inquiry, and he did so last month. Eric Trump is an executive vice president at the Trump Organization, running its day-to-day operations.

Investigators in James’ office have scrutinized a widening array of transactions. One of them is a 2010 financial restructuring of the Trump Hotel & Tower in Chicago, when the Fortress Credit Corp. forgave debt worth more than $100 million. The attorney general’s office said in court documents filed in August that the Trump Organization had thwarted efforts to determine how that money was reflected in its tax filings, and whether it was declared as income, as the law requires in most instances. The Times’ analysis of Trump’s financial records found that he had avoided federal income tax on almost all of the forgiven debt.

The attorney general’s office is also examining whether the Trump Organization used inflated appraisals when it received large tax breaks for promising to conserve land where its development efforts faltered, including at its Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, New York.

“The outcome of the election will have no impact on our investigations,” James said in a television interview this month, adding: “No one is above the law. We will just follow the facts and the evidence, wherever they lead us.”