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I think someone who claimed a hooker payoff as a business expense on their taxes would be prosecuted for tax fraud if they had powerful enemies, which Trump does. But that would be a federal charge, and Merrick Garland is playing his cards close to his chest.
This particular indictment is driven by Bragg's ego and desire to advance in NY lefty politics, not by a desire to convict Trump. Hence the weak charges - Trump is guilty of a lot more serious crimes than misrecording the Stormy Daniels hush money, but nothing that is both media-friendly and chargeable in New York state court.
I suspect the federal indictments will be less bullshit and will include serious crimes of which Trump is actually guilty.
Interestingly, in the indictment, it says that they plus-up'ed the payment to Cohen in order to cover the additional taxes he'd have to pay on the "income". So, like, weirdly, taxes were paid, probably more than would have been otherwise (he ended up paying $420k for what I guess he could have directly paid for like $130k). And the indictment actually doesn't allege tax fraud stemming from the allegedly fraudulent business records.
When reading the indictment, I couldn't help but think about how dumb/incompetent the whole thing seemed to be. Like, it mentioned how Trump was trying to delay payment until after the election, because then he could just renege on the promise to pay at that point, thinking it wouldn't matter. Honestly, unless there's some other game being played that I'm not aware of (and which is not pointed out in the indictment), almost the only thing I can think of is that he was planning on stiffing Cohen after the election if he had lost. Which is pretty dumb/incompetent. On the one hand, I guess he was purchasing a possible option on saving a couple hundred thousand dollars... and I guess this could have been considered a pretty 'cheap' option, given how strained you have to read the law to try to work your way up to felony charges out of the matter. On the other hand, maybe he just misevaluated where the biggest cost threat was, thinking short term about the primary concern being the election itself rather than any threat of prosecution by overzealous prosecutors with "novel" theories who are so blinkered by Trump-has-to-pay-ism.
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Trump didn’t claim a hooker payoff as a business expense though, he’s being prosecuted for claiming it’s a personal expense. I have a hard time seeing anyone getting charged for that.
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Surely his company also pays state taxes.
If only there were some way to know what sort of taxes he paid!
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I was responding specifically to the OP's claim; the reports I have seen have referenced business records, which might be something other than taxes.
We of course don't know yet precisely what the allegations are, but this does not strike me as particularly convincing. I would think that "legal expenses" are expenses paid for legal services. Why should payment pursuant to an NDA be a "legal expense" if payment pursuant to other contracts are not? Note that I am not arguing that Trump is or is not guilty, nor that the prosecution is or is not legitimate.
I would read "cost incurred in connection with" etc as costs related to negotiation, etc, etc, etc, but not the payment of the settlement itself. Just as legal costs (and attorneys fees, when available) are awarded to plaintiffs separately from the underlying recovery.
Edit: As it turns out, the DA's factual allegations are here. It claims:
So the books and records of the Trump Organization show the payments to Cohen (which would ultimately go to Stormy Daniels) as a corporate legal expense. That would end up being claimed as a business expense on the corporate tax return.
I think you could argue that Cohen negotiating a hush money agreement with Stormy Daniels was legal work, in which case he could bill the actual hush money as a disbursement, and paying a lawyer's bill including disbursements could be included as a "legal expense" in the accounts. But it would be the Trump Organization paying Trump's personal legal expenses, which would need to be accounted for as an employee fringe benefit. I am not familiar with US tax law, but in the UK that would be taxable on the employee (i.e. Trump).
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