Donald Trump has received a rare tax ruling in his favor.
The Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board said the former president should receive a $1.03 million refund for overpaying on a 2011 tax bill at the hotel and long-vacant retail portions of Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
That order is based on a decision that the Cook County Board of Review overestimated the combined value of those portions of the skyscraper, according to the report.
The refund would come out of property taxes for Chicago and several government agencies. But it’s not clear when Trump will see the money because Cook County State’s Attorney Kimberly Foxx filed suit with the Illinois Appellate Court to block the refund.
Trump initially claimed the thousands of square feet of vacant storefront at the tower along the Chicago River had no value and thus no taxes were owed. The state agency denied his argument but on June 2, the board unanimously ruled to reduce the commercial property assessments on the building, triggering the refund.
Read more
Politics
New York
Trump Org, CFO systematically cheated on taxes, prosecutors say
Politics
Chicago
Rogers Park apartment landlords could see assessments skyrocket
In 2018, a hearing officer for the board said Trump wasn’t due a refund because his team couldn’t prove the overvalued assessment. A new report afterward, however, argued that Trump was owed the money, though action wasn’t taken during his presidency.
In a separate case, the Department of Justice last week ruled that the Treasury Department had to hand over to Congress Trump’s tax returns. And in an ongoing probe, prosecutors in New York have accused the Trump Organization of systematically cheating on taxes.
[Sun-Times] — Holden Walter-Warner