Hundreds of millions of dollars! Donald Trump reports his income
US President Donald Trump reported hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue on Friday, on financial disclosure forms that now give more clues about his extensive business holdings.
Just for his golf courses, the president recorded $ 288 million in earnings last year. That includes $ 19.8 million from his club in Bedminster, NJ, where he has spent a few weekends as president.
He also reported the $ 37.2 million he earned last year for Mar-a-Lago, his Florida mansion where he hosted the president of China and ordered missile strikes against Syria. This private club also doubled the membership fee in the last year.
The revenue figure for Mar-a-Lago was an additional $ 7.4 million compared to the May 2016 financial disclosure form.
Additionally, Trump reported 19.7 million earnings in mid-April for his luxury hotel in Washington, which has become a source of concern due to the conflict of interest that it could generate, as a result of the possibility that governments foreigners can go to the president reserving rooms there. The hotel opened in September.
On account of royalties from his books, the president registered up to 7 million dollars. Included in that figure are between one million and five million for his book Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America. Plus nearly $ 11 million for the Miss Universe beauty pageant and a $ 84,000 pension from the Screen Actors Guild.
Trump has said that he sold all of his shares in June 2016 to avoid conflicts of interest. He later assured that he did it because it was inappropriate to own shares "when I am making agreements for this country and that may affect positively one company and negatively another."
Financial disclosure forms appear to confirm that the president did indeed sell his shares. Although the documents included income from capital gains income and dividends, they are presumed to be prior to the sale of shares.
These forms, which were published by the United States Office of Government Ethics, disclose the president's investments, other assets, earnings, retirement accounts, and other possessions.
It should be noted that they are different from the federal tax return, which Trump has refused to make public and that he would reveal much more details about his business and financial transactions, including any foreign partners he has.
Now, federal law didn't require Trump to file a new financial disclosure until next year, said Ken Gross, a Washington attorney who has advised business executives and elected politicians on finance and ethics.
"It is particularly important that he did the voluntary filing, in view of the fact that we do not have tax returns," Gross said.
For its part, the White House said in a statement that Trump "welcomed the opportunity" to submit the form "voluntarily."
Norman Eisen, a visiting attorney for the Brookings Institution and a former ethics attorney for President Barack Obama, explained that the document to the Trump document is missing a lot of valuable information.
“We still do not know the scope and sources of foreign emoluments, as well as the identity of all its investors, partners and financial persons involved in its businesses, nor the buyers, among whom there are probably foreigners who acquired its condominiums and other properties Eisen argued.
Eisen is also the president of an organization that is part of two lawsuits against Trump for foreign payments to his businesses, something that the plaintiffs say violates a constitutional clause that prohibits the president from accepting foreign gifts or emoluments.
The last information revealed by the president about his earnings was on May 26, when he was a candidate. That data showed that Trump was worth at least a billion dollars.
The tycoon also refused to sell his business as president, taking exception to government ethics experts who insisted on doing so. Instead, Trump transferred them to a trust in his name. Ultimately, any profit from business will accrue to him when he leaves office.
