Ex Lake Success firm prepared Trump’s 2005 tax return

Noah Manskar
President Donald Trump

It’s uncertain who leaked the copy of President Donald Trump’s 2005 tax return that was published Tuesday night, but it’s clear that the return was prepared in Lake Success.

Weiser LLP, an accounting firm once headquartered at 3000 Marcus Ave., is listed as the tax preparer on the return showing Trump paid $36.6 million in taxes on $153 million in income that year. The relationship was first reported by the Long Island Business News.

Weiser is now part of Mazars USA, an nationwide accounting company based in Manhattan. A Mazars spokeswoman declined to comment.

Mazars USA, also known as WeiserMazars, also handles the finances for charitable foundations headed by Trump and his son, Eric Trump, Crain’s New York Business reported last year.

The firm’s Woodbury address is listed on federal tax filings for the foundations from 2013 and 2014.

The income tax return, leaked to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston and televised Tuesday on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show, show Trump owed a total of $36,571,795 in taxes after earning about $153 million from real estate holdings, dividends, his salary and other sources.

The return lists 721 Fifth Ave., or Manhattan’s Trump Tower, as the home of Donald and Melania Trump, who were married in 2005.

More than $31.2 million of Trump’s taxes were paid under the alternative minimum tax, a special tax formula for high-income payers, according to Johnston’s report on the tax return.

Without that tax, which Trump wants to eliminate, he would have owed only $5.3 million, Johnston reported.

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