The Chicago Sun-Times reports that former President Donald Trump got a hefty property tax break on Trump International Hotel & Tower due to vacant retail spaces making the building less valuable. This year, the twice-impeached one-term president got a whopping $300,000 property tax cut because Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi slashed the property’s value. This seems to be par for the course for Donald J. Trump.
Three levels of retail space in the building have remained mostly vacant ever since the building was completed about ten years ago. The former president, who touts himself as a savvy businessman, paid just over $1 million in property taxes on the unfinished three levels last year, bringing Trump’s tax obligation down to $698,399 after Kaegi’s office lowered its estimation of the building’s value.
“It reconsidered that figure after Trump lawyer Patrick McNerney challenged the $19.9 million value that Kaegi’s staff originally put on the unfinished space for retail stores in the building,” the outlet reports. “The assessor cut the value even more than the figures McNerney presented. Kaegi agreed to lower the value to $12.5 million. That’s about $1 million less than an appraisal McNerney submitted.”
Trump’s attorney then appealed to the Cook County Board of Review to ask for an even bigger break on the taxes for Trump Tower; however, according to the report, “the board said no, noting that Kaegi had lowered the assessment even below Trump’s appraisal.”
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
Kaegi cut the assessed value by 37.5% on top of another 10% vacancy credit that was included in his initial assessment since 95% of the space is vacant, according to the report.
Kaegi’s spokesman Scott Smith defended the massive tax break afforded to the former president.
“Our current vacancy policy states that a property can only receive half of its claimed vacancy,” Smith said. “This is a change from the previous administration, which would reduce the assessed value based on the claimed vacancy, which is not an assessment standard used elsewhere. . . We’re definitely treating this property differently than in the past.”
And, of course, this causes problems.
“The Cook County Board of Review is fighting the state board’s decision, which could cost the Chicago Public Schools — which gets the biggest cut of each Chicago taxpayer’s property taxes — $500,000,” the report adds. “It has appealed to the Illinois Appellate Court.”
I’m not a businesswoman or a stable genius, but if you have space in a building that’s been empty for over a decade, then maybe, just maybe, it’s an unwise investment.
You can read the full report here.
Featured image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr, under Creative Commons license 2.0
