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Cairn Horn88

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Was curious what the most expensive home ever sold in the US for so I looked it up. $239 million for a penthouse duplex in Manhattan. Of course, that home doesn't have deed restrictions attached to it restricting its use to be a private club. I don't think someone is going to buy a piece of property for 8x that amount and want to live in a private club with 500 members. Maybe they want to run it like a business? Dues are apparently $20k annually, but let's say the average member spends $100k a year at the club. That's $50 million in annual revenue. Minus expenses, let's generously say it's throwing off $12.5 million in EBITDA. No one is paying >100x for that.

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59 minutes ago, brown water said:

Recovering CPA here… 

Accountants can provide 3 types of reports:

Compilation = we were handed a shoebox of information and turned it into normal looking financial statements. We did nothing to question the accuracy of what was in the shoebox.  It’s our client’s responsibility to provide accurate records for us to use.

Review = Our client turned the shoebox of information into financial statements for us. We asked a few questions and did a few things to make sure they weren’t utter bullshit but that’s still our client’s responsibility to make accurate statements. 
 

Audit = We did a lot of work to determine if the financial statements of our client had material errors (that would reasonably impact how a user might interpret that information).  We are still not responsible because that work may not find material errors and we rely on our client not lying to us.  
 

Arthur Andersen audited Enron and it, including the disclaimers, couldn’t save either firm. I know. I worked for AA in HTX at the time.  The notion that Trump is asserting a compilation report somehow protects him is laughable. If anything Mazars could be at risk even though a compilation requires almost no confirmation because general ethical standards of objectivity and independence require not turning a blind eye to utter bullshit.  
 

This is dead on.  

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Yup. Cohen's been detailing how Trump's been dodging being deposed by Cohen's lawyers in last few episodes of Meidas Touch' Political Beat down and the possibility of the Orange Shit Show pleading the 5th in a lawsuit he initiated. His latest delay tactic was insisting he had to be in NYC this week to attend trial (he didn't) as evidenced that after 2 1/2 days he got bored and left. 

 

Edited by Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand
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15 hours ago, brown water said:

Recovering CPA here… 

Accountants can provide 3 types of reports:

Compilation = we were handed a shoebox of information and turned it into normal looking financial statements. We did nothing to question the accuracy of what was in the shoebox.  It’s our client’s responsibility to provide accurate records for us to use.

Review = Our client turned the shoebox of information into financial statements for us. We asked a few questions and did a few things to make sure they weren’t utter bullshit but that’s still our client’s responsibility to make accurate statements. 
 

Audit = We did a lot of work to determine if the financial statements of our client had material errors (that would reasonably impact how a user might interpret that information).  We are still not responsible because that work may not find material errors and we rely on our client not lying to us.  
 

Arthur Andersen audited Enron and it, including the disclaimers, couldn’t save either firm. I know. I worked for AA in HTX at the time.  The notion that Trump is asserting a compilation report somehow protects him is laughable. If anything Mazars could be at risk even though a compilation requires almost no confirmation because general ethical standards of objectivity and independence require not turning a blind eye to utter bullshit.  
 

Appreciate the info. (My old man was a CPA, first at AY, then EY and then multiple firms that he founded/sold, etc.) So, Mazars did a "compilation" for Donald? Surely, somebody was doing the heavy lifting for TrumpCo and for his personal shit that would rise to the level of "audit" right?

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35 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Appreciate the info. (My old man was a CPA, first at AY, then EY and then multiple firms that he founded/sold, etc.) So, Mazars did a "compilation" for Donald? Surely, somebody was doing the heavy lifting for TrumpCo and for his personal shit that would rise to the level of "audit" right?

I don't think any entity can get financing of any significance without audited financials.  Back in the day, I was part-owner of a relatively small co, low 10 figures small, and we were basically leveraged to the hilt.  Our auditors would always threaten, if they felt like we were bs'ing them or generally not cooperating, that they would downgrade us from 'audit' to 'reviewed' which would tube all of our loans.

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18 hours ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

Is this bad?

Quote

According to Pratt's account, as described by the sources, Pratt told Trump he believed Australia should start buying its submarines from the United States, to which an excited Trump -- "leaning" toward Pratt as if to be discreet -- then told Pratt two pieces of information about U.S. submarines: the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads they routinely carry, and exactly how close they supposedly can get to a Russian submarine without being detected.

It's probably a little less sinister when you realize he probably had no idea what he was talking about and was just making shit up like normal. I've long believed that the military leaders knew what a moron he was and never really gave him any real information, and had a plan to ignore his orders if he ever tried to do something stupid like nuke Canada after Trudeau fucked Milania and Ivanka.  

Edited by 'stache
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1 hour ago, 'stache said:

It's probably a little less sinister when you realize he probably had no idea what he was talking about and was just making shit up like normal. I've long believed that the military leaders knew what a moron he was and never really gave him any real information, and had a plan to ignore his orders if he ever tried to do something stupid like nuke Canada after Trudeau fucked Milania and Ivanka.  

Other than 11,780, I don't think I've ever heard Trump use an actual specific number for anything, because that would require learning something, which he's extremely allergic to.

"How many warheads can these subs carry?  Hundreds, thousands, some people have even said millions!"

"And let me tell you, these subs can get thisclose to a Russian sub without being detected!  How close?  Oh, a number of feet, a great number of yards, the perfect number of yards."

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7 hours ago, C-Man said:

Appreciate the info. (My old man was a CPA, first at AY, then EY and then multiple firms that he founded/sold, etc.) So, Mazars did a "compilation" for Donald? Surely, somebody was doing the heavy lifting for TrumpCo and for his personal shit that would rise to the level of "audit" right?

Not unless a lender or investor somewhere made him get an audit, no.  Nobody gets an audit just because.  They are expensive, intrusive, and generally a pain in the ass.

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Also, I genuinely have to wonder if cancelling the business certificates is going to be seen as a proportionate remedy given that no one was particularly harmed by this particular fraud.

Wouldn't the taxpayers of New York be harmed by the fraud?  

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No one was harmed? Fuck yes, as long as I find a lender willing to play ball, I can say my home is worth 2 million, get a bigger cash out refinance to buy a couple lesser valued homes with cash and have their rental income pay the large mortgage payment. Repeat that a few times, and viola, I’m a real estate mogul. 

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2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Also, I genuinely have to wonder if cancelling the business certificates is going to be seen as a proportionate remedy given that no one was particularly harmed by this particular fraud.

This kind of thing is where lawyers (and political reporters, and doctors) show how dangerous it is for them to play the role they do in society with so little understanding of how the world outside their profession operates. Like I don’t even know where to begin with this “nobody was harmed” bullshit. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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3 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

This kind of thing is where lawyers (and political reporters, and doctors) show how dangerous it is for them to play the role they do in society with so little understanding of how the world outside their profession operates. Like I don’t even know where to begin with this “nobody was harmed” bullshit. 

Actually this was a legitimate question on my part, even if they use disgorgement to claw back the profits from the fraud, doesn't that still imply that just by the nature of the fraud there is a tax implication?  

Basically, he paid (or didn't) taxes with fraudulent assessments (lowering his tax liability), and on the other hand used different assessments or valuations to generate profit against the same properties.  Just by that nature it would seem to me that the claim no one was hurt is null.  There is a tax crime in there as well, and any tax crime against the state makes in turn the population of New York a victim.  Do I have that right?

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I suppose the weird way I am looking at this is as follows:

1.  Let's say you robbed a liquor store 5 years ago, but weren't caught until now.

2.  In the meantime, (bare with me on this part), you invested the money you robbed in an index fund and generated a return, but you didn't file taxes from returns from your robbery investment income.  

3.  Now you get arrested for the robbery because the police happen to crack the case.  In theory, (again bare with me a bit), if they went thru and immediately were able to detect that you did this investing and subsequently had additional unreported taxable income, how does this not get charged as tax fraud (or some other tax crime) as well as robbery?

Is this not more or less the same scenario?

 

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I wasn't able to edit the above in time, so continued:

Now I get that when prosecuting a liquor store robbery no one is going after the robber for failing to claim an income event (and no robber is documenting the event and filing it with the IRS), but nonetheless, technically speaking, I don't see how it isn't an earned income taxable event.  On a grander scale here, isn't that the case, made only worse by the fact it's from illicit earnings?

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45 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

This kind of thing is where lawyers (and political reporters, and doctors) show how dangerous it is for them to play the role they do in society with so little understanding of how the world outside their profession operates. Like I don’t even know where to begin with this “nobody was harmed” bullshit. 

I get treated to criminal probation/parole level random drug tests for the freedom to be a truck driver. 

No crime committed. That's just the baseline you start off at. To qualify to labor. 

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There was harm but I honestly question if losing a right to transact business is an appropriate remedy. I’ve honestly never heard of that and I’m a corporate lawyer. Money damages out the fucking ass? Yes. Jail time? Possibly. Loss of a charter I don’t even know exactly what that would mean.

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4 minutes ago, troph said:

There was harm but I honestly question if losing a right to transact business is an appropriate remedy. I’ve honestly never heard of that and I’m a corporate lawyer. Money damages out the fucking ass? Yes. Jail time? Possibly. Loss of a charter I don’t even know exactly what that would mean.

It’s frankly the most immediately appropriate remedy for egregious conduct and a pattern of bad faith. It should be more common.  Why should a state chartered liability shield NOT be dissolved if it’s being consistently abused?

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