“Follow the money”, Anne Applebaum’s excellent Weekend Essay piece (Life & Arts, August 31) about money laundering, skated over the “use” of this technique by US multimillionaires and billionaires.
Opening the piece with a description of foreign shell companies purchasing real properties from the Trump Corporation, she hinted that these same dodges were being used by domestic companies and individuals as a US tax avoidance scheme, maybe even by Donald Trump himself! The balance of the piece, however, suggested that those using these dodges are not US citizens, but mainly Russian or other foreigners.
The reality is so many high-priced assets — real estate, yachts, aeroplanes and works of art — are bought by US multimillionaires and billionaires using a “company” structure, which allows them to treat the assets as loss-leaders, to declare a loss against capital gains and thus reduce their taxes.
All this is probably within the legality of the US tax laws, which conveniently are written by a compliant Congress, often with the able assistance of those very same investors.
But perhaps Applebaum will treat us to a Part Two, an investigation of the US perpetrators, indulging in the same tax-dodging ploys.
Tessa Dunning
New York, NY, US
