‘Greed and cheating’: Prosecutor outlines tax fraud allegations against Trump Organization

TL;DR

Donald Trump is listed as a possible witness in the New York trial, where prosecutors will argue that the company he ran for decades engaged in a 15-year scheme to compensate top executives “off the books” in order to help them — and the company — avoid paying taxes.Trump, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, has blasted the investigation into the company he’s run for decades as a politically motivated “witch hunt.” Presiding over the case, acting New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, told potential jurors last week that in addition to the former president, his three oldest children — Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump — could be called as witnesses.The judge told potential jurors last week that the case involves allegations that the company “devised and operated a long-term scheme to fail to report income on tax forms.” The felonies that the indictment alleges the company committed include conspiracy, scheming to defraud, criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records.The indictment says the “scheme was intended to allow certain employees to substantially understate their compensation from the Trump Organization so that they could and did pay federal, state and local taxes in amounts that were significantly less than the amounts that should have been paid.” The alleged scheme also allowed the company “to evade the payment of payroll taxes that the Trump Organization was required to pay in connection with employee compensation,” the indictment said.Jury selection starts Monday in the Bronx — about 10 miles north of Merchan’s Manhattan courtroom — in a civil case brought against Trump, the Trump Organization and his 2016 campaign by a group of protesters who say they were roughed up by the then-candidate's security guards outside Trump Tower."

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