[Accounting firm Mazars USA, on Monday February 14,] informed the Trump Organization in a letter that it was cutting ties, noting that the financial statements it had prepared with information provided by the company between mid-2011 and June 2020 “should no longer be relied upon.”[Source: Huffington Post]
The mockery is well deserved. But, first, a bit of history:
- June 21, 2017: ABC News runs “Trump Organization seeks hefty tax break for Westchester golf club“
- June 21, 2017: RawStory picks up the item from ABC and runs “Trump golf club demands massive tax break from New York town — and wealthy locals are furious“
- June 21, 2017: BITEME.ME gets the RawStory story with their daily yak delivery of news and trivia, and broadcasts to the world “Trump golf club worth $50 mln when declaring net worth but only $7 mln when calculating property taxes”
- November 22, 2021: Vanity Fair joins the pile-on with “Report: Prosecutors Aren’t Done With the Trump Organization“
BITEME.ME, RawStory, and ABC News were all over this nearly five freaking years ago, yet it took Mazars until February of 2022 to get the memo. Could this scandal precipitate the death of Mazars like the Enron scandal did to Arthur Andersen two decades ago? Only time will tell.
The Trump organization should probably turn to the accounting firm of Friehling & Horowitz in the future.