Trump Organisation fined £1.3m for tax fraud

Donald Trump’s company has been fined 1.6 million dollars (£1.3 million) as punishment for a scheme in which the former US president’s top executives dodged personal income taxes on lavish job perks – a symbolic, hardly crippling blow for an enterprise boasting billions of dollars in assets.

A fine was the only penalty a judge could impose on the Trump Organisation for its conviction last month for 17 tax crimes, including conspiracy and falsifying business records.

The amount imposed by Judge Juan Manuel Merchan was the maximum allowed by law, an amount equal to double the taxes a small group of executives avoided on benefits including rent-free apartments in Trump buildings, luxury cars and private school tuition.

Mr Trump himself was not on trial and denied any knowledge of his executives evading taxes illegally.

The Trump Organisation was charged through its subsidiaries Trump Corp, which was fined 810,000 dollars; and Trump Payroll Corp, which was fined 800,000 dollars.

While the fines — less than the cost of a Trump Tower apartment — are not big enough to impact the company’s operations or future, the conviction is a black mark on the Republican’s reputation as a savvy businessman as he mounts a campaign to regain the White House.

Neither the former president or his children, who helped run and promote the Trump Organisation, were in the courtroom for the sentencing hearing.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said the fines constitute “a fraction of the revenue” of the Trump Organisation and that the scheme was “far-reaching and brazen”.

“All of these corrupt practices were part of the Trump Organisation executive compensation package, and it was certainly cheaper than paying higher salaries to those executives,” he said.

Defence attorneys had argued that the fine should be slightly lower because, they said, state law bars fines on multiple counts of the same charge. They estimated the penalty should have been 750,000 dollars or less for each of the two Trump entities.

Because the Trump Organisation is a corporation and not a person, a fine is the only way a judge can punish the company after its conviction last month for 17 tax crimes, including charges of conspiracy and falsifying business records.

The company asked for 30 days to pay the fine; the judge ordered it to pay in 14 days.

Besides the company, only one executive was charged in the case: former Trump Organisation chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty last summer to evading taxes on 1.7 million dollars in compensation.

He was sentenced on Tuesday to five months in jail.

Mr Trump has said the case against his company was part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” waged against him by vindictive Democrats. The company’s lawyers have vowed to appeal over the verdict.