I originally found out about Ivana Trump’s burial just off the 1st hole of Donald J. Trump’s New Jersey golf course from a Tweet, which seems somehow apropos. The tweet was accompanied by a copy of the New Jersey Tax Code (see below), to prove the argument that Ivana’s sad-looking grave plot was a tax scheme that The Donald thought up to save money. There were also allegations that Ivana’s estate was dunned as much as $150,000 for her final services. One article claimed that she was even charged, post mortem, for a membership, but that one may be overkill.
The entire contention gained steam when a Dartmouth professor (Brooke Harrington) published the New Jersey relevant tax code. “Vanity Fair” followed up with the (slightly abbreviated) article below.
We all knew DJT was capable of lots of shady behavior, but it is seriously sad that the grave of the woman who bore him three children and was an integral part of his empire for 14 years looks like someone’s pet is buried there. It’s too depressing to put a picture of her grave site here, but look it up for yourself if you doubt my description.
To wit, the “Vanity Fair” account:
“Insider reports that “the location of Ivana Trump’s grave—near the first hole of the golf course at Trump National Golf Club—may have tax implications for the business owned by the former president.” And by “tax implications,” the outlet obviously means burying his first wife on the property of his golf club may help minimize Trump’s tax bill. While ProPublica previously reported that Trump Family Trust tax documents show the family worked to establish a nonprofit cemetery company in Hackettstown, New Jersey—which, under the state’s tax code, would exempt the site from taxes, rates, and assessments, and the company from real estate taxes, rates, and assessments—that’s roughly 20 miles away from where Ivana was laid to rest. But according to one tax expert, the 45th president, who has a long history of getting creative with his taxes, may have found a way.
“As a tax researcher, I was skeptical of rumors Trump buried his ex-wife in that sad little plot of dirt on his Bedminster, NJ golf course just for tax breaks.” Dartmouth sociology professor Brooke Harrington,, tweeted on Saturday. “So I checked the NJ tax code & folks…it’s a trifecta of tax avoidance. Property, income & sales tax, all eliminated.” She noted that, according to state rules, there is “No stipulation regarding a minimum # of human remains necessary for the tax breaks to kick in–looks like one corpse will suffice to make at least 3 forms of tax vanish.”
Speaking to Salon’s Jon Skolnik, Jay Soled, director of Rutgers masters in taxation program, cast doubt on the idea that Trump would use his ex-wife’s burial for such self-serving means, calling the idea “a bit overkill.” On the other hand, it sounds…exactly like something Trump would do!
As Skolnik notes, in 2019, HuffPost reported that Trump was able to save nearly $90,000 a year on taxes by adding goats to the Bedminster golf club, which allowed him to classify the property as a farm. Meanwhile, as The New York Times reported in 2018, “Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud.” In 2019, the ex-president’s former attorney Michael Cohen told Congress that Trump regularly inflated his assets “when it served his purpose”—like to obtain loans—and deflated them when it would similarly be advantageous—like to minimize his tax bill. In 2020, the Times revealed that Trump had paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, another $750 in 2017, and nothing whatsoever—as in zero, zilch, nada—in 10 of the previous 15 years.”
