The Trump Organization is denying reports out of Panama that the new owners of the former Trump Ocean Club hotel in Panama City — now a Marriott, with the Trump name having been unceremoniously pried off the side last year after a 10-day standoff with Trump Organization employees — have evidence of tax evasion by Trump’s company when it was the owner of the building.
The Washington Post reported that on Monday, Orestes Fintiklis, the investor from Cyprus who booted the Trump Organization from their role as the hotel’s management service in March of 2018, filed legal documents in New York federal court declaring that his firm had found “old documents” indicating that the Trump Organization had evaded Panamanian taxes while they controlled the property.
Fintiklis claims that not only did the company fail to pay Panama the 12.5 percent tax on the management fees it collected, it also underreported the salaries it paid its employees in order to pay a lower tax rate on those as well.
Trump and Fintiklis are embroiled in bitter opposing lawsuits, both suing the other for millions over what each claims is a breach of contract. But the Cypriot billionaire asserts that he could be on the hook for millions more if the Central American nation demands that the current controller of the property forfeit the unpaid taxes. He says, in fact, that Panamanian authorities have “identified the failure to withhold and pay income taxes relating to Trump’s management fees.”
“Had Trump been honest … about its failure to pay taxes on the management fees it earned and its failure to properly report employee salaries to Panama’s social security agency,” Fintiklis said, his company would not have purchased Trump’s share of the property in 2017.
The Trump Organization, of course, denies everything, as they have been denying everything regarding the Panama property all along. After the legal issues last year, an attorney for Trump’s company — now run by his sons but still owned by the President — threatened the President of Panama over the fiasco, saying that the country itself could be liable for damages. The Trump Organization denied even that, saying that the attorney had done so without the permission or knowledge of the company.
If it is indeed proven that Trump evaded taxes, and that he continues to benefit from those savings today, an international legal case against him could very well strengthen the emoluments claims against him in a way that no one could have anticipated.
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