Here is more courtesy of Crain's:New: Trump admitted he makes UNDER $500,000 a year in a 2016 tax filing.— Ari Melber (@AriMelber) March 8, 2016
That got him $300 back.
-@CrainsNewYork pic.twitter.com/g3RIkxWr8R
One of the enduring mysteries of Donald Trump is just how much wealth he has. Forbes pegs his net worth at $4.5 billion, while Bloomberg News puts it at $2.9 billion. The GOP front-runner himself has said he's "really rich."
Maybe, but Trump's income is low enough to qualify for a New York state property-tax break that most high-rollers don't get.
It's called the STAR program, which stands for the New York State School Tax Relief Program and has been around since 1997. It offers an approximately $300 annual benefit for those who qualify. Hundreds of thousands of New York homeowners get it.
Here's where it gets interesting for Trump: To be eligible for STAR, a married couple must have annual income of $500,000 or less. One wouldn't think a guy as rich as Trump claims to be would qualify, but records filed with the city's Department of Finance show he received a $302 STAR benefit on his latest property-tax bill for his Trump Tower penthouse on Fifth Avenue.
That means whatever his annual income is, it's less than $500,000. (The state defines income for STAR purposes as federal adjusted gross income minus the taxable amount of total distributions from annuities or individual retirement accounts.) And Trump would have to have declared his New York apartment as his primary residence and sent the state a copy of his federal income-tax return in order to qualify for the $302 tax break.
"It's strange that a billionaire would apply for a $302 tax benefit and, moreover, that he would take it," said Martha Stark, a property-tax expert and former New York City finance commissioner who is now a lecturer at Baruch College. A Trump spokeswoman had no immediate comment. By the way, the city finance department checks with New York state tax authorities every year to make sure applicants for the STAR benefit have income under $500,000.
Well now, isn't THAT interesting?
I think most of us realize that Donald Trump is going to be crushed under his mountains of bullshit at some point, but what I can't decide is if it is better that it happens now during the primaries so that Hillary can run against Ted "The Lizard King" Cruz, or in the general so that both he and the entire Republican party can be humiliated on a national level.
Yep, that's conundrum alright.
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