Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Reuters/Getty
The best thing former President Donald Trump ever did with his Batman-like forested estate north of New York City was get a massive tax break—a tax break that’s now under investigation by the state’s attorney general.
According to Trump’s latest financial disclosures, the tax deduction Trump got from reserving the property for conservation—which investigators say reduced his tax bill by more than $3.5 million—still far outweighs the paltry income it keeps bringing him every year. And the whole situation may play right into the hands of the New York attorney general who is going after Trump for inflating his company’s portfolio and using the tax code to bail out failed investments.
Trump’s new financial disclosures show that Seven Springs LLC earned him less than $2,500 last year—in the form of a vaguely labeled “rebate.” And yet Trump values the land at more than $50 million, making it even more evident that it’s basically sitting idle, unlike all his other business properties.