ATTENTION has long focused on Donald Trump’s business dealings before he became president and certainly well in advance of the posting of the latest losses at Turnberry, and it now seems his presidency has adversely affected his hotels – a significant part of his empire.
Those in New York City and Chicago have seen steady declines, according to the Washington Post, with revenue in New York falling by 14% between 2015 and 2017, and an 8% drop in bookings in Chicago in 2015-16.
READ MORE: Trump's Turnberry golf resort below par with £3.4m losses
So serious was the situation that six of the nine-strong board of Trump International Hotel & Tower, earlier this year, voted to investigate if they had “the legal right to change the building’s name”, although the idea eventually fizzled out.
Some Trump-branded hotels scrapped the Trump name entirely, including that formerly known as the Trump SoHo, along with other properties in Panama and Toronto.
'Self-made' billionaire Donald Trump
While some groups, such as sports teams, have rejected stays at Trump properties since he was elected, there is one new source of guests at Chicago and New York.
“Both hotels noted an influx of visitors from Saudi Arabia,” said the Post.
Trump has promoted himself as a “self-made” billionaire and has regaled audiences with the story of how he transformed a $1 billion (£76.4m) loan from his father Fred into a $10bn (£7.6bn) fortune.
But an in-depth report from the New York Times has detailed schemes that allowed him to avoid paying taxes on wealth transferred from his parents to him and his siblings.
Based on 100,000 pages of financial records – including 200 pages of his father Fred’s tax returns – the Times said Trump had received today’s equivalent of $413m (£315.9m) from his father’s property empire, starting “when he was a toddler and continuing to this day”.
It said Fred lent his son at least $60.7m (£46.4m) to help fund his business ventures, equivalent to $140m (£107m) in today’s currency and came to his son’s financial aid on numerous occasions as his businesses floundered.
Trump claimed he had to repay the initial loan with interest, but the Times said tax returns show most of it was not repaid. It added that by setting up a fraudulent corporation through which Trump’s parents passed huge monetary gifts to him and his four siblings, they were able to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes – one of several tax schemes Trump helped orchestrate for his own benefit. The paper said these “dubious tax schemes” included cases of “outright fraud”.
New York City officials and state regulators are now examining whether Trump and his family underpaid taxes on his father’s property over several decades.
Deputy Mayor, Dean Fuleihan, said: “We are now just starting to pore through the information.”
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