Donald Trump's tax returns have remained in the news cycle throughout the man's entire presidency due to one simple fact: he's never turned them over to the American public--a major break with tradition.
The most recent headline in the eternal Trump tax saga? Ivanka Trump just called two separate fraud investigations "harassment."
Ms. Trump's outrage was spurred by a New York Times report that detailed the current status of two financial investigations Trump currently faces.
One of them is a civil inquiry brought by the New York State Attorney General, Letitia James. The other is a criminal fraud investigation led by Cyrus Vance, Jr. of the Manhattan district attorney's office.
The two investigations have been carried out independent of each other. But, as the New York Times report explained, both have sought more information about the same detail: money paid to Ivanka Trump.
The New York Times laid out the specifics:
"Some of those fees appear to have been paid to Ms. Trump, The Times found.
"On a 2017 disclosure she filed when joining the White House as a presidential adviser, she reported receiving payments from a consulting company she co-owned, totaling $747,622..."
"that exactly matched consulting fees claimed as tax deductions by the Trump Organization for hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, British Columbia."
In other words, the White House treated Ivanka Trump as a consultant while she was a full-time employee. Those consulting fees were then written off as tax deductions by the Trump Organization.
Simply put, the White House may have hired the Trump Organization and was able to exploit a tax loophole because of it.
donald trump animation GIF by Jacqueline Jing LinGiphy
Ivanka's Twitter defense of her father did not garner much sympathy.
The recent developments in the tax story come only a couple months after other key details made waves.
In late September, the New York Times acquired them and published several reports for multiple days. We learned that Trump paid $750 in taxes during his first year as president and wrote off $70k spent on haircuts as a business expense.
Alas, no matter how much the Trump family complains, the saga continues.
