IT IS BOTH ETHICALLY AND CRIMINALLY WRONG TO HAVE WRITTEN OFF THE PAYMENT MADE TO STORMY DANIELS AS IF IT WAS A LEGAL EXPENSE. PORTIONS OF THE REST OF THE $420,000. PAID OUT MAY HAVE NOT BEEN LAWFULLY DEDUCTED.
From"Status Kuo" thank you. I came to the same conclusion as this:
If you’re a company paying for legal services, you get to deduct that expense against your income so that you owe fewer taxes. And that’s what the Trump Organization did here.
Who benefited? Donald Trump, for sure. Not only were his own taxes lower as a result, but instead of having to pay hush money out of post-tax personal dollars, he was effectively able to deduct that hush money as a business expense by falsely labeling it as a legal expense, and not a personal payout or campaign contribution.
While hush money payments are not illegal, if you use your own company to pay them and then deduct it as a legal expense, that’s potentially a crime. Actually, and importantly, it’s potentially two crimes: falsification of business records and tax evasion.
THERE IS AN OBVIOUS SKULDUGGERY IN THAT DONALD TRUMP AVOIDED A PART OF HIS PAST BEHAVIOR BECOMING PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE AND ADVERSELY AFFECTING HIS CAMPAIGN TO BE ELECTED THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. THIS IS ALSO A CAMPAIGN LAW VIOLATION AS TRUMP DID NOT USE HIS OWN FUNDS WHICH HE HAD PAID TAX ON, SO THE FUNDS WOULD HAVE BEEN A POLITICAL DONATION FROM A CORPORATION WHICH EXCEEDED CONTRIBUTION LIMITS AND WHICH WAS NOT MADE TO A SUPER PAC.
