Trump Organization expected to be charged over tax

Ex-President Donald Trump’s company and its finance chief are expected to be charged with alleged tax-related crimes, according to US media reports.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office will bring charges against the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg on Thursday, outlets said.

It is not thought that Trump will be implicated personally, they reported.

New York City has already cut business ties with the twice-impeached former president.

The Trump Organization is a family holding company that owns hotels, golf clubs and other properties.

Any criminal charges brought against it would mark the first in long-running investigations on alleged fraud by both the Manhattan district attorney and the state attorney general.

Charges by District Attorney Cyrus Vance on Thursday are expected to focus on whether Mr Weisselberg and other company executives received benefits such as apartment rentals or leased cars without reporting them properly on their tax returns, according to the reports, which first appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

But Republican Donald Trump has previously suggested that the investigations are politically-motivated.

In a statement earlier this week, he said that the case was looking at “things that are standard practice throughout the US business community and in no way a crime”.

If the company were found guilty, however, certain business partners might draw a line under their relationship with the Trump Organization, as well as facing fines.

New York City, for example, has already announced it will terminate contracts with the firm to run skating rinks, a carousel and a golf course, in the aftermath of the US Capitol riots.

The investigations will also take into account eight years of Donald Trump’s personal and corporate tax returns, obtained by prosecutors after a long legal battle, which ended in the Supreme Court in February.

Mr Trump, who inherited money from his father and went on to become a property developer, is the first president since Richard Nixon in the 1970s not to have made his tax returns public.

Despite facing a number of investigations, the former president has denied any wrongdoing personally or in his business.

Representatives for the Trump Organization, Donald Trump and Allen Weisselberg did not immediately respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

(BBC)