Donald Trump’s company was fined $1.6 million Friday as punishment for a scheme in which the former 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 Organization 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.
Trump was not on trial and denied any knowledge of his executives evading taxes illegally.
The fine — less than the cost of a Trump Tower apartment — isn’t big enough to affect the company’s operations or future.
Neither the former president or his children, who helped run and promote the Trump Organization, were in the courtroom for the sentencing hearing.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said the fine constitutes “a fraction of the revenue” of the Trump Organization and that the scheme was “far-reaching and brazen.”
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