Trump paid his daughter Ivanka $747,622 for ‘consulting,’ then deducted it from his taxes, according to New York Times investigation

• A New York Times investigation into the tax filings of President Donald Trump show that between 2010 and 2018, Trump wrote off $26 million in unexplained consulting fees. 
• Among them, his daughter Ivanka received $747,622 in consulting fees, according to The Times.
• The payments were apparently related to managing hotels that were already part of her regular job description, according to the newspaper. 
• Trump deducted the payments from his taxes and reporters matched the number to one his daughter disclosed when joining the White House in 2017. 
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Donald Trump paid his daughter, Ivanka, $747,622 in “consulting fees,” The New York Times reported in their investigation into the president’s taxes.

The fees he paid Ivanka are among $26 million in these kind of “unexplained fees” that Trump wrote off his taxes between 2010 and 2018, The Times reported following a review of the leaked documents. 

The investigation, which was published on Sunday, details more than a decade of the famed businessman’s taxes, showing that he has been a far less successful entrepreneur than the image he tried to sell the American public. 

It also shows that Trump has paid only $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency, and the same number his first year in office.

In 10 of the previous 15 years, he paid no income taxes, The Times reported.

Ivanka was paid as a consultant for a job she was already supposed to do

The tax filings reviewed by The New York Times do not name the consultants who were paid by Trump. Reporters, though, were able to match the payments to the number claimed by Ivanka Trump in a financial disclosure when she joined the White House in 2017, the Times reported. 

The Trump Organization claimed that a $747,622 tax deduction were related to hotel projects in Vancouver, Canada, and Hawaii, The Times reported.

Ivanka Trump, though, was employed as an executive officer of the Trump companies that received profits and paid the consulting fees for both hotel projects, the newspaper reported, and therefore was was being treated as a consultant on the same hotels she was already responsible for managing. 

Tax law allows for employers to deduct consulting fees as a business expense, but to claim the deduction, the consulting arrangement must be an "ordinary and necessary" part of operating the business, the IRS says. 

The Times reported that the IRS has previously pursued civil penalties against some business owners who avoided taxes by paying high fees to related parties who were not really independent contractors. 

The Times cited a 2011 tax court case in which the IRS denied an Illinois accounting firm $3 million in deductions because it learned that partners paid themselves consulting fees through corporations they created. 

The court found that the partners created the fees to "distribute profits, not to compensate for services."

 A Trump Organization lawyer did not comment to The New York Times on the fees paid to Ivanka. 

The lawyer also told The Times that "most, if not all, of the facts appear to be inaccurate."

• Read more: 
• The most shocking revelations from the New York Times report about Trump's tax returns
• Trump denies New York Times report detailing his tax returns and financial problems: 'It's totally fake news'
• Trump is a haphazard businessman who has created a financial time bomb under himself