President Trump’s business reported different information in tax and loan documents about the occupancy rate of Trump Tower in Manhattan, ProPublica reported Wednesday.
Trump’s business told a lender that 99 percent of the building’s commercial space was occupied as of December 2011 and 98.7 percent was occupied as of June 2012. But the president’s business said in property-tax filings that the building’s occupancy rate was 83 percent in January 2012 and was the same a year later, according to ProPublica.
A Trump Organization spokesperson told ProPublica that “comparing the various reports is comparing apples to oranges,” since there are differences in reporting requirements.
But Susan Mancuso, an attorney who specializes in New York property taxes, told ProPublica that the gap in the occupancy rates was a “very significant difference.”
The news outlet said that a small portion of the differing occupancy rates appeared to have an explanation. That portion related to an instance where space in Trump Tower that had been newly leased but was still empty was treated as occupied on loan documents but not on tax documents.
Most of the difference in the reported occupancy rates is due to differing reports of how much space the Trump Organization used in the Manhattan building, ProPublica said. The business reported in loan documents that it and its affiliates occupied 31 percent of the building in mid-2012, but tax documents in January 2012 and 2013 reported that the Trump Organization and its affiliates occupied 18 percent of the building. Tax and finance experts told ProPublica they couldn’t determine a reason for the differences.
The news outlet reported that lenders and credit rating agencies will look at occupancy rates when they assess how risky a loan is and that there may be incentives for building owners to minimize how much space they’re leasing to themselves for property-tax purposes.
ProPublica’s article on Trump Tower comes after the news outlet last month reported about inconsistencies in tax and loan documents for two of Trump’s other New York properties.
The tax and loan information that ProPublica reviewed are public. Trump is waging a number of legal battles in an effort to keep other tax and financial information private, including federal income tax returns for himself and several of his business entities.
Trump Tower is the president’s signature building, where he lived for many years.
During a congressional hearing earlier this year, Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen said that the president would inflate the value of assets for insurance purposes and deflate them for tax purposes.