New York Times: As the Trumps Dodged Taxes, Their Tenants Paid a Price

Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig

Originally published in New York Times

Housing advocates have long argued that there is widespread abuse of the two programs that owners of rent-regulated apartments use to raise rents based on improvements or repairs. Two Albany lawmakers introduced legislation last August that would end one, known as Major Capital Improvements.

“The M.C.I. program has been subject to abuse by landlords for years — the fact the Trump family did it just highlights that,” said one of the lawmakers, state Senator Michael N. Gianaris, a Queens Democrat. “It’s time to scrap the program.”

Because the increases carry forward, even tenants who moved in years after the Trumps sold the last of their father’s empire in 2004 were affected by the family’s invoice-padding scheme.

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