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Here's how Trump manages to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars less in tax

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Aug 09, 2018
10:03 P.M.

The president has received major tax breaks over the years at some of his properties due to various loopholes he has managed to exploit.

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US President Donald Trump has found a tax loop in the state of New Jersey that has saved him tens of thousands of dollars on his golf courses in Bedminster and Colts Neck in the Garden State.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a property of that size and nature should cost the president approximately $80,000 in taxes on an annual basis. Instead, he pays under $1,000 for the year.

The reason he is able to do this, is because of a farmland tax break. On the property of the golf course, there is a herd of eight goats, allowing sections of the land to be classified as farmland.

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There is also some woodcutting and hay farming happening on the golf course.

This activity and the presence of the goats allows Trump to pay reduced taxes on the property.

The farmland-assessment program benefitting the president was added to the New Jersey Constitution in 1963 in an effort to prevent overdevelopment of the state.

The tax break is loved by some and hated by others in New Jersey, but was implemented in an effort to maintain some of the agricultural history of the state as the population continued to grow.

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The state already has among the highest property taxes in the country.

Both of the properties owned by Trump are in wealthy areas known for horse farms, and his land was last approved for farmland assessments in 2015.

These aren't the only two properties owned by the president that have earned him tax cuts.

He famously also received a 40-year tax break for the Grand Hyatt Hotel on East 42nd Street, and successfully sued the city of New York for a tax abatement on Trump Tower, according to NPR.

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