Trump unpaid? Bills, taxes, deposits, and an endorsement

I. At lunch yesterday with a contractor who's been building installations for wealthy people and businesses in the New York-Philadelphia corridor for more than 20 years:
"Did you ever do a job for Trump?"
"Three times, so far."
"Any trouble getting paid?"
"The first time, I didn't get the last payment. So when they called me the second time, I added it to the first installment. Third time, I expected to get stiffed on the last payment, so I built it into the earlier payments to make sure I got paid."
"That unusual?"
"Happens all the time. A lot of rich people screw the little guy by not making that last payment."
"OK if I use your name?"
"I'd rather not. We still work with that organization."
More on Trump's previous contractor-payments record, during his Atlantic City casino years, from AP here, USAToday here.

As to the apparent long-running IRS audit, "he's either done this legitimately and he's winning the audits. Or else he lost and he paid -- that's probably a reason the IRS would still be looking at him."

Bottom line: if Trump did what the Times says -- apply his A.C. losses to his later, smaller profits, wiping out his federal tax liability -- Trump's writeoffs would have been consistent with the U.S. tax code. Without these loss "carry-forwards," a lot more employers would be forced out of business by a single bad year.

The real insight may be that Trump lost a big pile of money in A.C., has never yet made it back on his U.S. operations, and would be a whole lot richer if he'd made money on his casino deals, instead of having to use tax losses to stay afloat. Being a poor businessman on his biggest deals wouldn't make Trump a tax cheat, whatever it would do to his reputation and his grand claims.

III. In the long-ago summer of 2001, Vernon W. Hill II's Commerce Bancorp issued a bellicose press release praising him as the "Genghis Khan of banking" and promising to liberate long-suffering New Yorkers from the short hours and lousy service he said was offered by dominant lenders Citibank and Chase Manhattan by opening his customer-first Commerce branches across town.

As Exhibit A of Manhattan icons making the "switch to Commerce," Hill cited Donald J. Trump, his sometime golfing buddy. See Trump with Hill at Commerce in NY here.

Trump announced he was pulling $5 million from his accounts with New York banks, which he dissed extravagantly, and depositing the money with Hill, whom he praised lavishly. They planned a theatrical presentation of the oversized check for $5 million, as if it were a charity event.

Recalling how Trump had lost a bundle for banks and bondholders in the financial collapse of his Atlantic City casino empire, I was impressed by his chutzpah in dissing the same financial establishment he'd stiffed.

Did Commerce also lend Trump money for his projects? I asked. "Are you crazy?" the banker told me. Commerce liked to get paid back.

The normally voluble Hill won't talk about how he thinks his golf buddy, who his bank didn't finance, might do as President.

IV. In 2005, Commerce Bank was among the Philadelphia-area institutions under scrutiny following the federal "bug probe" of pay-to-play allegations in Mayor John Street's administration.  Commerce's two top Pennsylvania officers and the city treasurer were among those sent to prison.

South Jersey Republicans speculated on whether the Pa. probe would be extended, by then-federal prosecutor Chris Christie, to review actions of Commerce vice chairman George Norcross, insurance executive, Cooper Hospital chair and Democratic Party leader, in gathering municipal business for the bank and its affiliates. 

I talked to Norcross, who had a string of his friends call me to assure me of his character and generosity. Among them were Hill's and Norcross's golfing buddy, whose aide rang in and put him on the line: "This is Donald Trump!" He told me broadly what a great guy George Norcross was, and batted my detailed questions away, disclaiming knowledge relevant to the story. I thought, Why quote a celebrity with nothing to say? And wrote my little story without Trump.

Of course there was a lot more going on between these guys, as WYNC (former Inquirer) reporter Matt Katz and others have reported. Christie (a Republican like Trump) and Democratic leader Norcross (who was for a time an owner of this news organization) went on to be political partners, not courtroom antagonists. More on that Norcross-Trump relationship from Katz here.