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itsonlyastrongbuzz t1_ja9jd8r wrote

This is slightly extreme but the premise isn’t uncommon.

If you bought a $500,000 house a few years ago you’d prefer the city thinks it’s only worth $450,000 because that’s what you’ll be taxed on, but you’d like to think the value is increasing and you could sell it for $550,000 tomorrow.

The city’s assessment is pretty much always less than sales comps.

One of Trumps lawsuits is based on an elaborate scheme of basically this very thing.

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kjmass1 t1_jaa9dqn wrote

Trump was somehow allowed to set his own assessments- city does that for us.

Low for taxes, high for sales.

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itsonlyastrongbuzz t1_jac4ler wrote

IIRC the basis of the fraud case is:

In his attempt to buy the Buffalo Bills, he provide the NFL a list of assets and their declared value. I’ve never bought an NFL team and don’t know who’s value you’re supposed to use but I’m sure it’s not common to use municipal property assessments.

The trouble is, in filing his taxes, he provided an identical list of assets, but the value he declared to the United States Government varied greatly from the value he submitted to the NFL.

It’s a game everyone plays to some degree but none quite as brazen as Trump.

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