Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, paid almost no federal income taxes in several recent years despite a rising net worth and billions of dollars spent building his real estate empire, the New York Times reported Saturday.
Citing “confidential financial records” it obtained, the Times reported that Kushner, 37, a senior White House adviser, for years minimized his tax bills by booking heavy losses on reported depreciation of his real estate holdings that overwhelmed his reported income.
The Times noted that nothing in the documents indicate that Kushner or his company broke the law.
In a 2015 example, Kushner booked $8.3 million in losses driven by “significant depreciation” of real estate owned by Kushner and his company. The loss offset Kushner’s income of $1.7 million in salary and investment gains, the Times reported, citing the documents.
More than a dozen tax accountants and lawyers reviewed the records for the Times. One told the paper that the records indicated that Kushner paid little or no federal income taxes in five of the last eight years.
The documents reviewed by the newspaper describe Kushner’s business dealings and finances from 2009 to 2016, according to the paper. They were drafted with Kushner’s participation as part of a review of his finances by a prospective lender and contain information from his federal tax filings in addition to other data provided by advisers, according to the report.
The records were given to the paper by “a person who has had financial dealings with Kushner and his family,” it said.
Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Abbe Lowell, Kushner’s lawyer, said in an email that he couldn’t respond to assumptions taken from incomplete documents. He said, without offering proof, that the documents were obtained in violation of the law and business confidentiality agreements.
“However, always following the advice of numerous attorneys and accountants, Mr. Kushner properly filed and paid all taxes due under the law and regulations,” Mirijanian said in the statement.