Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) is asking Palm Beach County to tax Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property at the rate the former president claims it is worth amid his ongoing civil fraud trial in New York, NBC News reports.
Wrote Moskowitz: “Between 2011 and 2021, you value the Mar-a-Lago property between $18 million and $28 million. Mar-a-Lago was listed as worth $490 million in financial documents given to banks. If the property value of Mar-a-Lago is so much higher than it was appraised, will you be amending the property value in line with the Trump family’s belief that the property is worth well over a billion dollars?”
Everyone commenting here doesn’t seem to realize that markets fluctuate and the actual value of a property can’t be determined until it actually goes up for sale. So the current value is always an estimate. There are evaluations that can be done to get a close approximation of what a property might go for, but it’s just an educated guess in reality.
Where Trump went wrong is obviously just making up values both high (to secure loans)and low (to pay less taxes). The fraud he was found guilty of will punish him for the former, and going after him as Moskowitz is would take care of the latter.
From my limited experience tax assessments tend to be conservative, as people squawk if they go too high.
Real estate appraising is an art and a science, but if you just invent a number with no basis in reality, it’s plain old fraud.
Yeah, that’s not reality in today’s market. It may have been more accurate when the market was slower, and prices more stable. But now appraisals are basically “well, here are the comps. Things shift drastically over months, so it’s really just worth what someone will pay.”
Using comparables from even 6 months ago or a few blocks away isn’t going to be accurate today.
When we let people who own many widgets estimate the value of a widget, the price of a widget can just keep going up every 6 months. And then down again at tax time.
It’s a great time to be a widget owner.
I had someone come to my house and tell me what it worth without selling it