特朗普家族“逃稅門”（一）：超過4億美元的財產(chǎn)
《紐約時報》的一項調(diào)查發(fā)現(xiàn)，特朗普總統(tǒng)在上世紀90年代采取了一些可疑的避稅方案，包括一些完全屬于欺詐的做法，從而大大增加從父母那里得到的財富。
Mr. Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, the legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help.
特朗普以一個白手起家的億萬富翁的形象贏得了總統(tǒng)大選。他長期以來一直堅稱，他的父親、傳奇的紐約建造商弗雷德·C·特朗普(Fred C. Trump)幾乎沒有給他提供任何經(jīng)濟幫助。
But The Times’s investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.
但時報基于大量的保密納稅申報單和財務記錄進行的調(diào)查顯示，特朗普從他父親的房地產(chǎn)帝國獲得了以今日價格為計至少4.13億美元的財產(chǎn)，財產(chǎn)的轉(zhuǎn)移從他蹣跚學步時開始，一直到持續(xù)到今天。
Much of this money came to Mr. Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes. He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents, records and interviews show. Records indicate that Mr. Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more. He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.
流向特朗普的錢有相當一部分是由于他在幫助父母避稅。記錄和采訪顯示，他和他的兄弟姐妹們成立了一個皮包公司，用以遮掩父母贈送給他們的成百上千萬美元。記錄顯示，特朗普幫助父親使用不正當?shù)亩愂諟p免，總減免數(shù)額高達數(shù)百萬美元。他還幫助制訂了一個策略，將納稅申報單上父母持有的房產(chǎn)的價值低估了數(shù)億美元，大幅降低了將這些房產(chǎn)轉(zhuǎn)移給他和他的兄弟姐妹時的稅負。
These maneuvers met with little resistance from the Internal Revenue Service, The Times found. The president’s parents, Fred and Mary Trump, transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate then imposed on gifts and inheritances.
時報發(fā)現(xiàn)，這些做法幾乎沒有受到來自美國國稅局的反對?？偨y(tǒng)的父母弗雷德和瑪麗·特朗普(Mary Trump)將遠高于10億美元的財富轉(zhuǎn)移給了自己的孩子們，按照那時對贈與和遺產(chǎn)征收的55%的稅率計算，這可能會產(chǎn)生至少5.5億美元的稅金賬單。
The Trumps paid a total of $52.2 million, or about 5 percent, tax records show.
稅務記錄顯示，特朗普父母總共支付了5220萬美元的稅，即大約5%。
The president declined repeated requests over several weeks to comment for this article. But a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Charles J. Harder, provided a written statement on Monday, one day after The Times sent a detailed description of its findings. “The New York Times’s allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100 percent false, and highly defamatory,” Mr. Harder said. “There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. The facts upon which The Times bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate.”
時報在幾周里多次請求總統(tǒng)對這篇報道置評，均被拒絕。不過，特朗普的律師查爾斯·J·哈德(Charles J. Harder)在時報送去關(guān)于調(diào)查結(jié)果的詳細描述的一天后，于上周一提供了一份書面聲明。“《紐約時報》關(guān)于欺詐和逃稅的指控百分之百不實的，屬嚴重的誹謗，”哈德說。“不存在任何欺詐或逃稅。時報進行錯誤指控所依賴的事實極其不準確。”
Mr. Harder sought to distance Mr. Trump from the tax strategies used by his family, saying the president had delegated those tasks to relatives and tax professionals. “President Trump had virtually no involvement whatsoever with these matters,” he said. “The affairs were handled by other Trump family members who were not experts themselves and therefore relied entirely upon the aforementioned licensed professionals to ensure full compliance with the law.”
哈德試圖讓特朗普與他的家人使用的稅收策略保持距離，他說，總統(tǒng)把這些任務委托給了親戚和稅務專業(yè)人士。“特朗普總統(tǒng)與這些事務幾乎毫無瓜葛，”他說。“這些事情是由特朗普的其他家庭成員處理的，他們本身并不是專家，因此完全依賴上述持牌專業(yè)人士，以確保完全遵守法律。”
The president’s brother, Robert Trump, issued a statement on behalf of the Trump family:
總統(tǒng)的弟弟羅伯特·特朗普代表特朗普家族發(fā)表聲明：
“Our dear father, Fred C. Trump, passed away in June 1999. Our beloved mother, Mary Anne Trump, passed away in August 2000. All appropriate gift and estate tax returns were filed, and the required taxes were paid. Our father’s estate was closed in 2001 by both the Internal Revenue Service and the New York State tax authorities, and our mother’s estate was closed in 2004. Our family has no other comment on these matters that happened some 20 years ago, and would appreciate your respecting the privacy of our deceased parents, may God rest their souls.”
我們敬愛的父親弗雷德·C·特朗普于1999年6月去世。我們親愛的母親瑪麗·安妮·特朗普于2000年8月去世。所有適當?shù)馁浥c和遺產(chǎn)稅報稅表都已提交，并已支付了應繳的稅款。美國國稅局和紐約州稅局都已于2001年注銷了我們父親的遺產(chǎn)賬戶，并已于2004年注銷了我們母親的遺產(chǎn)賬戶。我們的家人對這些發(fā)生在約20年前的事情沒有其他的評論，并希望你們尊重我們已故父母的隱私，愿上帝讓他們的靈魂得到安息。”
The Times’s findings raise new questions about Mr. Trump’s refusal to release his income tax returns, breaking with decades of practice by past presidents. According to tax experts, it is unlikely that Mr. Trump would be vulnerable to criminal prosecution for helping his parents evade taxes, because the acts happened too long ago and are past the statute of limitations. There is no time limit, however, on civil fines for tax fraud.
時報的調(diào)查結(jié)果引發(fā)了人們對特朗普拒絕公布個人所得稅申報表的新質(zhì)疑，特朗普違反了前任總統(tǒng)幾十年來的做法。根據(jù)稅務專家的說法，特朗普不太可能因為幫助父母逃稅而受到刑事起訴，因為這些行為發(fā)生在很久以前，已經(jīng)超過了法定訴訟時效。然而，對于稅務欺詐的民事罰款沒有時限。
The findings are based on interviews with Fred Trump’s former employees and advisers and more than 100,000 pages of documents describing the inner workings and immense profitability of his empire. They include documents culled from public sources — mortgages and deeds, probate records, financial disclosure reports, regulatory records and civil court files.
這些調(diào)查基于對弗雷德·特朗普的前雇員和顧問的采訪，以及描述他的房產(chǎn)帝國內(nèi)部運作和巨大盈利能力的逾10萬頁的文件。其中包括從公共來源文件中找到的東西——抵押貸款和契約、遺囑認證記錄、財務披露報告、監(jiān)管記錄和民事法庭文件。
The investigation also draws on tens of thousands of pages of confidential records — bank statements, financial audits, accounting ledgers, cash disbursement reports, invoices and canceled checks. Most notably, the documents include more than 200 tax returns from Fred Trump, his companies and various Trump partnerships and trusts. While the records do not include the president’s personal tax returns and reveal little about his recent business dealings at home and abroad, dozens of corporate, partnership and trust tax returns offer the first public accounting of the income he received for decades from various family enterprises.
調(diào)查還使用了數(shù)萬頁的保密記錄——銀行結(jié)單、財務審計、會計賬薄、現(xiàn)金支出報告、發(fā)票和注銷的支票。最值得注意的是，這些文件包括了來自弗雷德·特朗普、他的公司以及各種特朗普合作伙伴關(guān)系和信托公司的200多份納稅申報表。盡管這些記錄不包括總統(tǒng)本人的個人納稅申報表，也幾乎沒有披露任何他近年來的國內(nèi)外業(yè)務往來，但數(shù)十份企業(yè)、合作伙伴和信托公司的納稅申報表首次公開了總統(tǒng)幾十年來從各種家族企業(yè)獲得的收入。
What emerges from this body of evidence is a financial biography of the 45th president fundamentally at odds with the story Mr. Trump has sold in his books, his TV shows and his political life. In Mr. Trump’s version of how he got rich, he was the master dealmaker who broke free of his father’s “tiny” outer-borough operation and parlayed a single $1 million loan from his father (“I had to pay him back with interest!”) into a $10 billion empire that would slap the Trump name on hotels, high-rises, casinos, airlines and golf courses the world over. In Mr. Trump’s version, it was always his guts and gumption that overcame setbacks. Fred Trump was simply a cheerleader.
從這些證據(jù)中得到的信息可以說是第45任總統(tǒng)的金融傳記，這份傳記與特朗普在他的書、電視節(jié)目和政治生活中兜售的故事有著根本的差異。在特朗普講述的自己如何致富的版本里，他擅長做交易，他擺脫了父親在偏僻城區(qū)經(jīng)營“小”生意的限制，把從父親那里借來的唯一一筆100萬美元貸款(“我必須得連本帶利還給他的!”)，變成了一個100億美元的帝國，把特朗普的名字貼上了酒店、高樓大廈、賭場、航空公司和世界各地的高爾夫球場的門面。在特朗普的版本中，永遠是他的勇氣和進取心讓他克服了困難。弗雷德·特朗普只不過是一個啦啦隊員。
“I built what I built myself,” Mr. Trump has said, a narrative that was long amplified by often-credulous coverage from news organizations, including The Times.
“我自己營造了我營造的東西，”特朗普說。這種說法長期以來一直被輕信的媒體報道(包括時報的)加以放大。
Certainly a handful of journalists and biographers, notably Wayne Barrett, Gwenda Blair, David Cay Johnston and Timothy L. O’Brien, have challenged this story, especially the claim of being worth $10 billion. They described how Mr. Trump piggybacked off his father’s banking connections to gain a foothold in Manhattan real estate. They poked holes in his go-to talking point about the $1 million loan, citing evidence that he actually got $14 million. They told how Fred Trump once helped his son make a bond payment on an Atlantic City casino by buying $3.5 million in casino chips.
當然，個別記者和傳記作家，尤其是韋恩·巴雷特(Wayne Barrett)、格溫達·布萊爾(Gwenda Blair)、戴維·塞·約翰斯頓(David Cay Johnston)和蒂莫西·L·奧布萊恩(Timothy L. O’brien)，對這個故事提出過質(zhì)疑，尤其是特朗普聲稱的自己高達100億美元的身家。他們描述了特朗普如何利用他父親的銀行關(guān)系，在曼哈頓的房地產(chǎn)市場站穩(wěn)了腳跟。他們戳穿了他對那項100萬美元貸款的常用說法，稱有證據(jù)表明他實際上從父親那里得到了1400萬美元。他們講述了弗雷德·特朗普如何通過購買350萬美元的賭場籌碼，幫助兒子支付了大西洋城(Atlantic City)一家賭場的一筆債券還款。
But The Times’s investigation of the Trump family’s finances is unprecedented in scope and precision, offering the first comprehensive look at the inherited fortune and tax dodges that guaranteed Donald J. Trump a gilded life. The reporting makes clear that in every era of Mr. Trump’s life, his finances were deeply intertwined with, and dependent on, his father’s wealth.
但時報對特朗普家族財務狀況的調(diào)查在廣度和準確度上都是前所未有的，調(diào)查首次揭示了確保唐納德·J·特朗普(Donald J. Trump)過上富貴生活的遺產(chǎn)繼承和避稅行為。時報報道清楚地表明，在特朗普一生的每個時期，他的財務都與他父親的財富緊密相連，并依賴于他父親的財富。
By age 3, Mr. Trump was earning $200,000 a year in today’s dollars from his father’s empire. He was a millionaire by age 8. By the time he was 17, his father had given him part ownership of a 52-unit apartment building. Soon after Mr. Trump graduated from college, he was receiving the equivalent of $1 million a year from his father. The money increased with the years, to more than $5 million annually in his 40s and 50s.
特朗普3歲時就已從父親的房地產(chǎn)帝國掙到了(以今天的美元計算)20萬美元的年收入。他8歲時已是一名百萬富翁。到他17歲的時候，父親已經(jīng)給了他一棟有52套公寓的大樓的部分所有權(quán)。特朗普大學畢業(yè)后不久，他就從父親那里得到相當于100萬美元的年收入。這些錢隨著年齡的增長而增加，到他四五十歲的時候，已超過每年500萬美元。
Fred Trump’s real estate empire was not just scores of apartment buildings. It was also a mountain of cash, tens of millions of dollars in profits building up inside his businesses, banking records show. In one six-year span, from 1988 through 1993, Fred Trump reported $109.7 million in total income, now equivalent to $210.7 million. It was not unusual for tens of millions in Treasury bills and certificates of deposit to flow through his personal bank accounts each month.
弗雷德·特朗普的房地產(chǎn)帝國不只是幾十棟公寓樓。銀行記錄顯示，他的財產(chǎn)還包括一筆巨額現(xiàn)金，這些錢是他從經(jīng)營中積累起來的數(shù)千萬美元的利潤。在1988年至1993年的六年時間里，弗雷德·特朗普報稅表上報告的總收入為1.097億美元，相當于現(xiàn)在的2.107億美元。數(shù)千萬美元的短期國庫券和定期存單每月從他的個人銀行賬戶中流過，并不罕見。
Fred Trump was relentless and creative in finding ways to channel this wealth to his children. He made Donald not just his salaried employee but also his property manager, landlord, banker and consultant. He gave him loan after loan, many never repaid. He provided money for his car, money for his employees, money to buy stocks, money for his first Manhattan offices and money to renovate those offices. He gave him three trust funds. He gave him shares in multiple partnerships. He gave him $10,000 Christmas checks. He gave him laundry revenue from his buildings.
弗雷德·特朗普殫精竭慮、千方百計把這筆財富轉(zhuǎn)移給子女。唐納德不光成了他的受薪雇員，還成了他的不動產(chǎn)經(jīng)理人、房東、銀行家和顧問。他借給唐納德一筆又一筆款，許多都從未償還。他給了唐納德買車的錢、雇傭員工的錢、在曼哈頓買下第一處辦公室的錢和重新裝修這些辦公室的錢。他給了他三個信托基金。他給了他好幾家合伙企業(yè)的股份。他給了他10000美元的圣誕節(jié)支票。他給了他自己房產(chǎn)項目里洗衣房的收入。
Much of his giving was structured to sidestep gift and inheritance taxes using methods tax experts described to The Times as improper or possibly illegal. Although Fred Trump became wealthy with help from federal housing subsidies, he insisted that it was manifestly unfair for the government to tax his fortune as it passed to his children. When he was in his 80s and beginning to slide into dementia, evading gift and estate taxes became a family affair, with Donald Trump playing a crucial role, interviews and newly obtained documents show.
他給的這些錢很多都設法避開了贈與及遺產(chǎn)稅，稅務專家對《紐約時報》說那些手段是不正當?shù)?，可能是非法的。盡管弗雷德·特朗普當年是受惠于聯(lián)邦政府的住房補貼政策才發(fā)的家，他卻堅持認為政府在他把財產(chǎn)過戶給子女時征稅是明顯不公平的。記者采訪及新近獲得的文件顯示，在他八十多歲開始患上失智癥時，逃避贈與稅和不動產(chǎn)稅就成了家族事務，而唐納德·特朗普扮演了至關(guān)重要的角色。
The line between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion is often murky, and it is constantly being stretched by inventive tax lawyers. There is no shortage of clever tax avoidance tricks that have been blessed by either the courts or the I.R.S. itself. The richest Americans almost never pay anything close to full freight. But tax experts briefed on The Times’s findings said the Trumps appeared to have done more than exploit legal loopholes. They said the conduct described here represented a pattern of deception and obfuscation, particularly about the value of Fred Trump’s real estate, that repeatedly prevented the I.R.S. from taxing large transfers of wealth to his children.
合法避稅和非法逃稅之間的界限往往是模糊的，而且不斷被勇于創(chuàng)新的稅務律師們改變著。有不少巧妙的避稅手段是蒙法院或國稅局本身所賜。那些最富有的美國人幾乎從不繳足額的稅。但看過《紐約時報》所獲材料的稅務專家說，特朗普一家的做法似乎不僅僅是利用法律漏洞。他們說這些材料里描述的做法呈現(xiàn)出一種瞞天過海、混淆視聽的套路，尤其是有關(guān)弗雷德·特朗普名下不動產(chǎn)的價值，這一次次阻止了國稅局在他向子女轉(zhuǎn)移大筆財富時征稅。
“The theme I see here through all of this is valuations: They play around with valuations in extreme ways,” said Lee-Ford Tritt, a University of Florida law professor and a leading expert in gift and estate tax law. “There are dramatic fluctuations depending on their purpose.”
“我從這些材料里看到的主題是估值：他們用各種極致手法在估值上做手腳，”佛羅里達大學法學教授李-福特·特里特(Lee-Ford Tritt)說，他也是贈與及遺產(chǎn)稅法的權(quán)威專家。“出于不同的目的，估值有極大的波動。”
The manipulation of values to evade taxes was central to one of the most important financial events in Donald Trump’s life. In an episode never before revealed, Mr. Trump and his siblings gained ownership of most of their father’s empire on Nov. 22, 1997, a year and a half before Fred Trump’s death. Critical to the complex transaction was the value put on the real estate. The lower its value, the lower the gift taxes. The Trumps dodged hundreds of millions in gift taxes by submitting tax returns that grossly undervalued the properties, claiming they were worth just $41.4 million.
唐納德·特朗普一生中最重要的一個財務事件中，通過價值操縱來逃稅起到關(guān)鍵作用。特朗普和兄弟姐妹于1997年11月22日，也就是弗雷德·特朗普去世前一年半，獲得了父親商業(yè)帝國的絕大部分所有權(quán)，此事此前從未披露。復雜的財產(chǎn)移交當中至關(guān)重要的是不動產(chǎn)的價值。價值越低，贈與稅就越低。特朗普一家提交了嚴重低估不動產(chǎn)價值的報稅表，聲稱其價值僅為4140萬美元，由此躲過了數(shù)億美元的贈與稅。
The same set of buildings would be sold off over the next decade for more than 16 times that amount.
這批房產(chǎn)在隨后十年內(nèi)售出，價錢比這個數(shù)字高出16倍多。
The most overt fraud was All County Building Supply & Maintenance, a company formed by the Trump family in 1992. All County’s ostensible purpose was to be the purchasing agent for Fred Trump’s buildings, buying everything from boilers to cleaning supplies. It did no such thing, records and interviews show. Instead All County siphoned millions of dollars from Fred Trump’s empire by simply marking up purchases already made by his employees. Those millions, effectively untaxed gifts, then flowed to All County’s owners — Donald Trump, his siblings and a cousin. Fred Trump then used the padded All County receipts to justify bigger rent increases for thousands of tenants.
最明目張膽的欺詐發(fā)生在“奧康提樓宇物資及維修”(All County Building Supply&Maintenance)，這家公司是特朗普家族在1992年建立的。奧康提明面上的作用是弗雷德·特朗普建持有樓宇的采購代理商，負責購買從鍋爐到清潔用品的所有物資。公司記錄及記者采訪顯示，這些事它從沒做過。實際上奧康提只是通過簡單地虛增弗雷德·特朗普手下員工已完成的采購，就從他的資產(chǎn)帝國抽走了幾百萬美元。這幾百萬實際上成為未繳稅的贈與，流向奧康提的持有人——唐納德·特朗普、他的兄弟姐妹和一個表親。然后弗雷德·特朗普再用奧康提注了水的發(fā)票來向數(shù)千租戶說明房租大漲是合理的。
After this article was published on Tuesday, a spokesman for the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance said the agency was “reviewing the allegations” and “vigorously pursuing all appropriate areas of investigation.”
本周二的文章發(fā)表后，紐約州稅務和財政部(New York State Department of Taxation and Finance)的一名發(fā)言人表示，該機構(gòu)正在“審閱各項指控”并“積極推進所有適用領域的調(diào)查”。
All told, The Times documented 295 streams of revenue that Fred Trump created over five decades to enrich his son. In most cases his four other children benefited equally. But over time, as Donald Trump careened from one financial disaster to the next, his father found ways to give him substantially more money, records show. Even so, in 1990, according to previously secret depositions, Mr. Trump tried to have his father’s will rewritten in a way that Fred Trump, alarmed and angered, feared could result in his empire’s being used to bail out his son’s failing businesses.
《紐約時報》記錄了五十年來弗雷德·特朗普為了兒子致富而創(chuàng)造的295項收入來源。大多情況下，四個子女受益均等。但記錄顯示，隨著時間推移，當唐納德·特朗普從一場財務災難沖向另一場財務災難，父親給的錢要多了許多。即便如此，根據(jù)此前保密的幾份證詞，在1990年特朗普還是試圖讓他父親改寫遺囑，這讓弗雷德·特朗普感到驚慌憤怒，擔心這可能會使他的江山被用來拯救他兒子失敗的生意。
Of course, the story of how Donald Trump got rich cannot be reduced to handouts from his father. Before he became president, his singular achievement was building the brand of Donald J. Trump, Self-Made Billionaire, a brand so potent it generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue through TV shows, books and licensing deals.
當然，并不能把唐納德·特朗普如何發(fā)家簡單說成靠父親施舍。在成為總統(tǒng)之前，他的一大成就是打造了唐納德·J·特朗普這個品牌，一個自我奮斗而成的億萬富翁。這個品牌如此強大，僅通過電視節(jié)目、圖書出版和授權(quán)交易就產(chǎn)生了數(shù)億美元的收入。
Constructing that image required more than Fred Trump’s money. Just as important were his son’s preternatural marketing skills and always-be-closing competitive hustle. While Fred Trump helped finance the accouterments of wealth, Donald Trump, master self-promoter, spun them into a seductive narrative. Fred Trump’s money, for example, helped build Trump Tower, the talisman of privilege that established his son as a major player in New York. But Donald Trump recognized and exploited the iconic power of Trump Tower as a primary stage for both “The Apprentice” and his presidential campaign.
塑造這個形象光有弗雷德·特朗普的錢是不夠的。他兒子超凡的營銷技巧和一定要成交的爭勝勁頭同樣重要。弗雷德·特朗普出資營造了財富的外表，而自我推銷大師唐納德·特朗普把這些外表編造成誘人的敘事。比如弗雷德·特朗普出錢幫助建造了特朗普大廈，一個權(quán)力的符號，使他的兒子成為紐約生意場上的一個主力玩家。但唐納德·特朗普看到并利用了特朗普大廈的標志性力量，把它當作電視真人秀《學徒》(The Apprentice)的主舞臺，也當作他總統(tǒng)選戰(zhàn)的主舞臺。
The biggest payday he ever got from his father came long after Fred Trump’s death. It happened quietly, without the usual Trumpian news conference, on May 4, 2004, when Mr. Trump and his siblings sold off the empire their father had spent 70 years assembling with the dream that it would never leave his family.
特朗普得到父親的最大一筆贈與，是在弗雷德·特朗普去世多年之后。它是悄無聲息地進行的，并沒有一貫的特朗普式新聞發(fā)布會，那是2004年5月4日，特朗普和兄弟姐妹賣掉了父親用70年營造的商業(yè)帝國，他當初還夢想著這份家業(yè)永遠不會離開他的家族。
Donald Trump’s cut: $177.3 million, or $236.2 million in today’s dollars.
唐納德·特朗普分得1.773億美元，換算成今天的幣值是2.362億美元。
- 網(wǎng)站推薦
