Trump sent $2.3M owed to him to his foundation
In cases where he diverted his own income to his foundation, tax experts said, Trump would still likely be required to pay taxes on the income. Trump has refused to release his personal tax returns. His campaign said he paid income tax on one of the donations, but did not respond to questions about the others.
Alcatraz is waiting, Lil’ Donnie. It’s not quite a done deal yet, though. Josh at TPM:
Under the set-up that Epshteyn described, tax experts said, Trump might have escaped paying income taxes on donations to the Trump Foundation — as long as he truly had no influence over where the money went.
Now here's where my assumption comes in. I'm pretty certain that if Trump had paid taxes, there'd be no need to cite this case. The tax experts the Post talked to (we're talking to our own right now) seem to think it's pretty open and shut that Trump needed to pay taxes.
Then there’s this from Fahrenthold:
“Are you confident that the Trump Foundation has followed all charitable rules and laws?” journalist Sharyl Attkisson asked on a Sunday TV program called Full Measure.
“Well, I hope so,” Trump said. “I mean, my lawyers do it.”
The Trump Foundation has no paid staff. The last time it reported spending any money on legal fees was in 2010, when it spent $53 total for the year.
The lawyers he doesn’t pay make certain that the Foundation he never gives any of his own money to follows the rules. By the way, the diverted money amounts to nearly half of the total receipts of the Trump Foundation since Trump stopped donating himself.