I think undervaluing commercial real estate and business property is something a lot of businesses try to do in search of lower property taxes.

officers? A quid-pro-quo??

They try every couple of years to overvalue my farm, so they can charge more taxes. I appeal it and win about 50% of the time.

But the accesors are not doing their job if Traitor Trump could devalue his property so easily. Why are they letting him claim such false numbers? Where is their assessment of value?

is that businesses will appeal their assessments arguing for lower ones. They don't always win, but they try.

Taxing authorities determine the value independently.

The owner of course is free to contest the value hoping to persuade the government agency to lower that value. Maybe the taxing agency will be persuaded, maybe not. Regardless that tax value is a number owned by the agency, not the owner.

That value is totally independent from the value that a business or person places on their property and presents to banks, lenders and investors.

I experienced this first hand. I bought a 2 bedroom home in the midwest years ago for around $40,000. I fixed it up, lived there and overtime as it's market value increased to around $80k. At which time I went to a bank, got an equity loan based on the $80k or so.

During that time, the local agency still had the tax value at around $45k. That was -their- determination not mine. No government official ever asked me how much it was worth. Think I contested that tax bill? of course not. I happily paid the tax bill as presented.

To challenge the State/County assessment, the owner needs to have a State-Certified appraiser prepare the valuation and present t at the hearing. This person would be looking at a revoked license if they engaged in some chicanery. To "devalue" income-producing property, the owner overstates expenses and under-reports income. If what Trump's people reported to the appraiser didn't look legit, the appraiser should have discounted it and gone with market norms(like if Trump reports vacancy of 25% and its no greater than 15% for similar properties, etc..). What I am saying, there was likely a "conspiracy" between an appraiser and whoever hired them to devalue his property for tax purposes.

While the value for tax purposes and loan purposes are "independent", if there is a paper trail of you "inflating" income/expenses for a lender and challenging an assessment based upon different income/expenses data, a few people stand to be in hot water.

There is almost 3100 taxing localities in the US. The vast majority of property is valued without the owners input at all.

It's only when owner challenges the valuation does a formal process start. Corruption is pretty rampart in NYC though. So I'm sure you are correct.

It's ashame the media didn't vet this guy.

tax fraud, financial fraud