President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents, an investigation by The New York Times has found.

《纽约时报》的一项调查发现，特朗普总统在上世纪90年代采取了一些可疑的避税方案，包括一些完全属于欺诈的做法，从而大大增加从父母那里得到的财富。

Mr. Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, the legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help.

特朗普以一个白手起家的亿万富翁的形象赢得了总统大选。他长期以来一直坚称，他的父亲、传奇的纽约建造商弗雷德·C·特朗普(Fred C. Trump)几乎没有给他提供任何经济帮助。

But The Times’s investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.

但时报基于大量的保密纳税申报单和财务记录进行的调查显示，特朗普从他父亲的房地产帝国获得了以今日价格为计至少4.13亿美元的财产，财产的转移从他蹒跚学步时开始，一直到持续到今天。

Much of this money came to Mr. Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes. He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents, records and interviews show. Records indicate that Mr. Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more. He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings.

流向特朗普的钱有相当一部分是由于他在帮助父母避税。记录和采访显示，他和他的兄弟姐妹们成立了一个皮包公司，用以遮掩父母赠送给他们的成百上千万美元。记录显示，特朗普帮助父亲使用不正当的税收减免，总减免数额高达数百万美元。他还帮助制订了一个策略，将纳税申报单上父母持有的房产的价值低估了数亿美元，大幅降低了将这些房产转移给他和他的兄弟姐妹时的税负。

These maneuvers met with little resistance from the Internal Revenue Service, The Times found. The president’s parents, Fred and Mary Trump, transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate then imposed on gifts and inheritances.

时报发现，这些做法几乎没有受到来自美国国税局的反对。总统的父母弗雷德和玛丽·特朗普(Mary Trump)将远高于10亿美元的财富转移给了自己的孩子们，按照那时对赠与和遗产征收的55%的税率计算，这可能会产生至少5.5亿美元的税金账单。

The Trumps paid a total of $52.2 million, or about 5 percent, tax records show.

税务记录显示，特朗普父母总共支付了5220万美元的税，即大约5%。

The president declined repeated requests over several weeks to comment for this article. But a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Charles J. Harder, provided a written statement on Monday, one day after The Times sent a detailed description of its findings. “The New York Times’s allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100 percent false, and highly defamatory,” Mr. Harder said. “There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. The facts upon which The Times bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate.”

时报在几周里多次请求总统对这篇报道置评，均被拒绝。不过，特朗普的律师查尔斯·J·哈德(Charles J. Harder)在时报送去关于调查结果的详细描述的一天后，于上周一提供了一份书面声明。“《纽约时报》关于欺诈和逃税的指控是百分之百不实的，属严重的诽谤，”哈德说。“不存在任何欺诈或逃税。时报进行错误指控所依赖的事实极其不准确。”

Mr. Harder sought to distance Mr. Trump from the tax strategies used by his family, saying the president had delegated those tasks to relatives and tax professionals. “President Trump had virtually no involvement whatsoever with these matters,” he said. “The affairs were handled by other Trump family members who were not experts themselves and therefore relied entirely upon the aforementioned licensed professionals to ensure full compliance with the law.”

哈德试图让特朗普与他的家人使用的税收策略保持距离，他说，总统把这些任务委托给了亲戚和税务专业人士。“特朗普总统与这些事务几乎毫无瓜葛，”他说。“这些事情是由特朗普的其他家庭成员处理的，他们本身并不是专家，因此完全依赖上述持牌专业人士，以确保完全遵守法律。”

The president’s brother, Robert Trump, issued a statement on behalf of the Trump family:

总统的弟弟罗伯特·特朗普代表特朗普家族发表声明：

“Our dear father, Fred C. Trump, passed away in June 1999. Our beloved mother, Mary Anne Trump, passed away in August 2000. All appropriate gift and estate tax returns were filed, and the required taxes were paid. Our father’s estate was closed in 2001 by both the Internal Revenue Service and the New York State tax authorities, and our mother’s estate was closed in 2004. Our family has no other comment on these matters that happened some 20 years ago, and would appreciate your respecting the privacy of our deceased parents, may God rest their souls.”

我们敬爱的父亲弗雷德·C·特朗普于1999年6月去世。我们亲爱的母亲玛丽·安妮·特朗普于2000年8月去世。所有适当的赠与和遗产税报税表都已提交，并已支付了应缴的税款。美国国税局和纽约州税局都已于2001年注销了我们父亲的遗产账户，并已于2004年注销了我们母亲的遗产账户。我们的家人对这些发生在约20年前的事情没有其他的评论，并希望你们尊重我们已故父母的隐私，愿上帝让他们的灵魂得到安息。”

The Times’s findings raise new questions about Mr. Trump’s refusal to release his income tax returns, breaking with decades of practice by past presidents. According to tax experts, it is unlikely that Mr. Trump would be vulnerable to criminal prosecution for helping his parents evade taxes, because the acts happened too long ago and are past the statute of limitations. There is no time limit, however, on civil fines for tax fraud.

时报的调查结果引发了人们对特朗普拒绝公布个人所得税申报表的新质疑，特朗普违反了前任总统几十年来的做法。根据税务专家的说法，特朗普不太可能因为帮助父母逃税而受到刑事起诉，因为这些行为发生在很久以前，已经超过了法定诉讼时效。然而，对于税务欺诈的民事罚款没有时限。

The findings are based on interviews with Fred Trump’s former employees and advisers and more than 100,000 pages of documents describing the inner workings and immense profitability of his empire. They include documents culled from public sources — mortgages and deeds, probate records, financial disclosure reports, regulatory records and civil court files.

这些调查基于对弗雷德·特朗普的前雇员和顾问的采访，以及描述他的房产帝国内部运作和巨大盈利能力的逾10万页的文件。其中包括从公共来源文件中找到的东西——抵押贷款和契约、遗嘱认证记录、财务披露报告、监管记录和民事法庭文件。

The investigation also draws on tens of thousands of pages of confidential records — bank statements, financial audits, accounting ledgers, cash disbursement reports, invoices and canceled checks. Most notably, the documents include more than 200 tax returns from Fred Trump, his companies and various Trump partnerships and trusts. While the records do not include the president’s personal tax returns and reveal little about his recent business dealings at home and abroad, dozens of corporate, partnership and trust tax returns offer the first public accounting of the income he received for decades from various family enterprises.

调查还使用了数万页的保密记录——银行结单、财务审计、会计账薄、现金支出报告、发票和注销的支票。最值得注意的是，这些文件包括了来自弗雷德·特朗普、他的公司以及各种特朗普合作伙伴关系和信托公司的200多份纳税申报表。尽管这些记录不包括总统本人的个人纳税申报表，也几乎没有披露任何他近年来的国内外业务往来，但数十份企业、合作伙伴和信托公司的纳税申报表首次公开了总统几十年来从各种家族企业获得的收入。

What emerges from this body of evidence is a financial biography of the 45th president fundamentally at odds with the story Mr. Trump has sold in his books, his TV shows and his political life. In Mr. Trump’s version of how he got rich, he was the master dealmaker who broke free of his father’s “tiny” outer-borough operation and parlayed a single $1 million loan from his father (“I had to pay him back with interest!”) into a $10 billion empire that would slap the Trump name on hotels, high-rises, casinos, airlines and golf courses the world over. In Mr. Trump’s version, it was always his guts and gumption that overcame setbacks. Fred Trump was simply a cheerleader.

从这些证据中得到的信息可以说是第45任总统的金融传记，这份传记与特朗普在他的书、电视节目和政治生活中兜售的故事有着根本的差异。在特朗普讲述的自己如何致富的版本里，他擅长做交易，他摆脱了父亲在偏僻城区经营“小”生意的限制，把从父亲那里借来的唯一一笔100万美元贷款（“我必须得连本带利还给他的！”），变成了一个100亿美元的帝国，把特朗普的名字贴上了酒店、高楼大厦、赌场、航空公司和世界各地的高尔夫球场的门面。在特朗普的版本中，永远是他的勇气和进取心让他克服了困难。弗雷德·特朗普只不过是一个啦啦队员。

“I built what I built myself,” Mr. Trump has said, a narrative that was long amplified by often-credulous coverage from news organizations, including The Times.

“我自己营造了我营造的东西，”特朗普说。这种说法长期以来一直被轻信的媒体报道（包括时报的）加以放大。

Certainly a handful of journalists and biographers, notably Wayne Barrett, Gwenda Blair, David Cay Johnston and Timothy L. O’Brien, have challenged this story, especially the claim of being worth $10 billion. They described how Mr. Trump piggybacked off his father’s banking connections to gain a foothold in Manhattan real estate. They poked holes in his go-to talking point about the $1 million loan, citing evidence that he actually got $14 million. They told how Fred Trump once helped his son make a bond payment on an Atlantic City casino by buying $3.5 million in casino chips.

当然，个别记者和传记作家，尤其是韦恩·巴雷特(Wayne Barrett)、格温达·布莱尔(Gwenda Blair)、戴维·塞·约翰斯顿(David Cay Johnston)和蒂莫西·L·奥布莱恩(Timothy L. O’brien)，对这个故事提出过质疑，尤其是特朗普声称的自己高达100亿美元的身家。他们描述了特朗普如何利用他父亲的银行关系，在曼哈顿的房地产市场站稳了脚跟。他们戳穿了他对那项100万美元贷款的常用说法，称有证据表明他实际上从父亲那里得到了1400万美元。他们讲述了弗雷德·特朗普如何通过购买350万美元的赌场筹码，帮助儿子支付了大西洋城(Atlantic City)一家赌场的一笔债券还款。

But The Times’s investigation of the Trump family’s finances is unprecedented in scope and precision, offering the first comprehensive look at the inherited fortune and tax dodges that guaranteed Donald J. Trump a gilded life. The reporting makes clear that in every era of Mr. Trump’s life, his finances were deeply intertwined with, and dependent on, his father’s wealth.

但时报对特朗普家族财务状况的调查在广度和准确度上都是前所未有的，调查首次揭示了确保唐纳德·J·特朗普(Donald J. Trump)过上富贵生活的遗产继承和避税行为。时报报道清楚地表明，在特朗普一生的每个时期，他的财务都与他父亲的财富紧密相连，并依赖于他父亲的财富。

By age 3, Mr. Trump was earning $200,000 a year in today’s dollars from his father’s empire. He was a millionaire by age 8. By the time he was 17, his father had given him part ownership of a 52-unit apartment building. Soon after Mr. Trump graduated from college, he was receiving the equivalent of $1 million a year from his father. The money increased with the years, to more than $5 million annually in his 40s and 50s.

特朗普3岁时就已从父亲的房地产帝国挣到了（以今天的美元计算）20万美元的年收入。他8岁时已是一名百万富翁。到他17岁的时候，父亲已经给了他一栋有52套公寓的大楼的部分所有权。特朗普大学毕业后不久，他就从父亲那里得到相当于100万美元的年收入。这些钱随着年龄的增长而增加，到他四五十岁的时候，已超过每年500万美元。

Fred Trump’s real estate empire was not just scores of apartment buildings. It was also a mountain of cash, tens of millions of dollars in profits building up inside his businesses, banking records show. In one six-year span, from 1988 through 1993, Fred Trump reported $109.7 million in total income, now equivalent to $210.7 million. It was not unusual for tens of millions in Treasury bills and certificates of deposit to flow through his personal bank accounts each month.

弗雷德·特朗普的房地产帝国不只是几十栋公寓楼。银行记录显示，他的财产还包括一笔巨额现金，这些钱是他从经营中积累起来的数千万美元的利润。在1988年至1993年的六年时间里，弗雷德·特朗普报税表上报告的总收入为1.097亿美元，相当于现在的2.107亿美元。数千万美元的短期国库券和定期存单每月从他的个人银行账户中流过，并不罕见。

Fred Trump was relentless and creative in finding ways to channel this wealth to his children. He made Donald not just his salaried employee but also his property manager, landlord, banker and consultant. He gave him loan after loan, many never repaid. He provided money for his car, money for his employees, money to buy stocks, money for his first Manhattan offices and money to renovate those offices. He gave him three trust funds. He gave him shares in multiple partnerships. He gave him $10,000 Christmas checks. He gave him laundry revenue from his buildings.

弗雷德·特朗普殚精竭虑、千方百计把这笔财富转移给子女。唐纳德不光成了他的受薪雇员，还成了他的不动产经理人、房东、银行家和顾问。他借给唐纳德一笔又一笔款，许多都从未偿还。他给了唐纳德买车的钱、雇佣员工的钱、在曼哈顿买下第一处办公室的钱和重新装修这些办公室的钱。他给了他三个信托基金。他给了他好几家合伙企业的股份。他给了他10000美元的圣诞节支票。他给了他自己房产项目里洗衣房的收入。

Much of his giving was structured to sidestep gift and inheritance taxes using methods tax experts described to The Times as improper or possibly illegal. Although Fred Trump became wealthy with help from federal housing subsidies, he insisted that it was manifestly unfair for the government to tax his fortune as it passed to his children. When he was in his 80s and beginning to slide into dementia, evading gift and estate taxes became a family affair, with Donald Trump playing a crucial role, interviews and newly obtained documents show.

他给的这些钱很多都设法避开了赠与及遗产税，税务专家对《纽约时报》说那些手段是不正当的，可能是非法的。尽管弗雷德·特朗普当年是受惠于联邦政府的住房补贴政策才发的家，他却坚持认为政府在他把财产过户给子女时征税是��显不公平的。记者采访及新近获得的文件显示，在他八十多岁开始患上失智症时，逃避赠与税和不动产税就成了家族事务，而唐纳德·特朗普扮演了至关重要的角色。

The line between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion is often murky, and it is constantly being stretched by inventive tax lawyers. There is no shortage of clever tax avoidance tricks that have been blessed by either the courts or the I.R.S. itself. The richest Americans almost never pay anything close to full freight. But tax experts briefed on The Times’s findings said the Trumps appeared to have done more than exploit legal loopholes. They said the conduct described here represented a pattern of deception and obfuscation, particularly about the value of Fred Trump’s real estate, that repeatedly prevented the I.R.S. from taxing large transfers of wealth to his children.

合法避税和非法逃税之间的界限往往是模糊的，而且不断被勇于创新的税务律师们改变着。有不少巧妙的避税手段是蒙法院或国税局本身所赐。那些最富有的美国人几乎从不缴足额的税。但看过《纽约时报》所获材料的税务专家说，特朗普一家的做法似乎不仅仅是利用法律漏洞。他们说这些材料里描述的做法呈现出一种瞒天过海、混淆视听的套路，尤其是有关弗雷德·特朗普名下不动产的价值，这一次次阻止了国税局在他向子女转移大笔财富时征税。

“The theme I see here through all of this is valuations: They play around with valuations in extreme ways,” said Lee-Ford Tritt, a University of Florida law professor and a leading expert in gift and estate tax law. “There are dramatic fluctuations depending on their purpose.”

“我从这些材料里看到的主题是估值：他们用各种极致手法在估值上做手脚，”佛罗里达大学法学教授李-福特·特里特(Lee-Ford Tritt)说，他也是赠与及遗产税法的权威专家。“出于不同的目的，估值有极大的波动。”

The manipulation of values to evade taxes was central to one of the most important financial events in Donald Trump’s life. In an episode never before revealed, Mr. Trump and his siblings gained ownership of most of their father’s empire on Nov. 22, 1997, a year and a half before Fred Trump’s death. Critical to the complex transaction was the value put on the real estate. The lower its value, the lower the gift taxes. The Trumps dodged hundreds of millions in gift taxes by submitting tax returns that grossly undervalued the properties, claiming they were worth just $41.4 million.

唐纳德·特朗普一生中最重要的一个财务事件中，通过价值操纵来逃税起到关键作用。特朗普和兄弟姐妹于1997年11月22日，也就是弗雷德·特朗普去世前一年半，获得了父亲商业帝国的绝大部分所有权，此事此前从未披露。复杂的财产移交当中至关重要的是不动产的价值。价值越低，赠与税就越低。特朗普一家提交了严重低估不动产价值的报税表，声称其价值仅为4140万美元，由此躲过了数亿美元的赠与税。

The same set of buildings would be sold off over the next decade for more than 16 times that amount.

这批房产在随后十年内售出，价钱比这个数字高出16倍多。

The most overt fraud was All County Building Supply & Maintenance, a company formed by the Trump family in 1992. All County’s ostensible purpose was to be the purchasing agent for Fred Trump’s buildings, buying everything from boilers to cleaning supplies. It did no such thing, records and interviews show. Instead All County siphoned millions of dollars from Fred Trump’s empire by simply marking up purchases already made by his employees. Those millions, effectively untaxed gifts, then flowed to All County’s owners — Donald Trump, his siblings and a cousin. Fred Trump then used the padded All County receipts to justify bigger rent increases for thousands of tenants.

最明目张胆的欺诈发生在“奥康提楼宇物资及维修”(All County Building Supply＆Maintenance)，这家公司是特朗普家族在1992年建立的。奥康提明面上的作用是弗雷德·特朗普建持有楼宇的采购代理商，负责购买从锅炉到清洁用品的所有物资。公司记录及记者采访显示，这些事它从没做过。实际上奥康提只是通过简单地虚增弗雷德·特朗普手下员工已完成的采购，就从他的资产帝国抽走了几百万美元。这几百万实际上成为未缴税的赠与，流向奥康提的持有人——唐纳德·特朗普、他的兄弟姐妹和一个表亲。然后弗雷德·特朗普再用奥康提注了水的发票来向数千租户说明房租大涨是合理的。

After this article was published on Tuesday, a spokesman for the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance said the agency was “reviewing the allegations” and “vigorously pursuing all appropriate areas of investigation.”

本周二的文章发表后，纽约州税务和财政部(New York State Department of Taxation and Finance)的一名发言人表示，该机构正在“审阅各项指控”并“积极推进所有适用领域的调查”。

All told, The Times documented 295 streams of revenue that Fred Trump created over five decades to enrich his son. In most cases his four other children benefited equally. But over time, as Donald Trump careened from one financial disaster to the next, his father found ways to give him substantially more money, records show. Even so, in 1990, according to previously secret depositions, Mr. Trump tried to have his father’s will rewritten in a way that Fred Trump, alarmed and angered, feared could result in his empire’s being used to bail out his son’s failing businesses.

《纽约时报》记录了五十年来弗雷德·特朗普为了儿子致富而创造的295项收入来源。大多情况下，四个子女受益均等。但记录显示，随着时间推移，当唐纳德·特朗普从一场财务灾难冲向另一场财务灾难，父亲给的钱要多了许多。即便如此，根据此前保密的几份证词，在1990年特朗普还是试图让他父亲改写遗嘱，这让弗雷德·特朗普感到惊慌愤怒，担心这可能会使他的江山被用来拯救他儿子失败的生意。

Of course, the story of how Donald Trump got rich cannot be reduced to handouts from his father. Before he became president, his singular achievement was building the brand of Donald J. Trump, Self-Made Billionaire, a brand so potent it generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue through TV shows, books and licensing deals.

当然，并不能把唐纳德·特朗普如何发家简单说成靠父亲施舍。在成为总统之前，他的一大成就是打造了唐纳德·J·特朗普这个品牌，一个自我奋斗而成的亿万富翁。这个品牌如此强大，仅通过电视节目、图书出版和授权交易就产生了数亿美元的收入。

Constructing that image required more than Fred Trump’s money. Just as important were his son’s preternatural marketing skills and always-be-closing competitive hustle. While Fred Trump helped finance the accouterments of wealth, Donald Trump, master self-promoter, spun them into a seductive narrative. Fred Trump’s money, for example, helped build Trump Tower, the talisman of privilege that established his son as a major player in New York. But Donald Trump recognized and exploited the iconic power of Trump Tower as a primary stage for both “The Apprentice” and his presidential campaign.

塑造这个形象光有弗雷德·特朗普的钱是不够的。他儿子超凡的营销技巧和一定要成交的争胜劲头同样重要。弗雷德·特朗普出资营造了财富的外表，而自我推销大师唐纳德·特朗普把这些外表编造成诱人的叙事。比如弗雷德·特朗普出钱帮助建造了特朗普大厦，一个权力的符号，使他的儿子成为纽约生意场上的一个主力玩家。但唐纳德·特朗普看到并利用了特朗普大厦的标���性力量，把它当作电视真人秀《学徒》(The Apprentice)的主舞台，也当作他总统选战的主舞台。

The biggest payday he ever got from his father came long after Fred Trump’s death. It happened quietly, without the usual Trumpian news conference, on May 4, 2004, when Mr. Trump and his siblings sold off the empire their father had spent 70 years assembling with the dream that it would never leave his family.

特朗普得到父亲的最大一笔赠与，是在弗雷德·特朗普去世多年之后。它是悄无声息地进行的，并没有一贯的特朗普式新闻发布会，那是2004年5月4日，特朗普和兄弟姐妹卖掉了父亲用70年营造的商业帝国，他当初还梦想着这份家业永远不会离开他的家族。

Donald Trump’s cut: $177.3 million, or $236.2 million in today’s dollars.

唐纳德·特朗普分得1.773亿美元，换算成今天的币值是2.362亿美元。

‘ONE-MAN BUILDING SHOW’ 

Before he turned 20, Fred Trump had already built and sold his first home. At age 35, he was building hundreds of houses a year in Brooklyn and Queens. By 45, he was building some of the biggest apartment complexes in the country.

在20岁之前，弗雷德·特朗普已建造并售出了自己的第一栋住宅。35岁起，他每年都在布鲁克林和皇后区建造数百栋房子。45岁后，他已在建造一些美国最大的公寓综合体。

Aside from an astonishing work ethic — “Sleeping is a waste of time,” he liked to say — the growth reflected his shrewd application of mass-production techniques. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle called him “the Henry Ford of the home-building industry.” He would erect scaffolding a city block long so his masons, sometimes working a second shift under floodlights, could throw up a dozen rowhouses in a week. They sold for about $115,000 in today’s dollars.

除了惊人的工作态度——他喜欢说，“睡觉是浪费时间”——这种增长也反映了他对大规模生产技术的敏锐使用。《布鲁克林鹰报》(Brooklyn Daily Eagle)称他为“住宅建筑业的亨利·福特”。他会搭起一个街区那么长的脚手架，好让他的泥瓦工一周内就能盖起12栋联排住宅——有的工人是在泛光灯下上夜班。以今天的美元计算，这些住宅的售价约为11.5万美元。

By 1940, American Builder magazine was taking notice, devoting a spread to Fred Trump under the headline “Biggest One-Man Building Show.” The article described a swaggering lone-wolf character who paid for everything — wages, supplies, land — from a thick wad of cash he carried at all times, and whose only help was a secretary answering the phone in an office barely bigger than a parking space. “He is his own purchasing agent, cashier, paymaster, building superintendent, construction engineer and sales director,” the article said.

到1940年，《美国建造者》(American Builder)杂志开始注意到他，杂志用横贯两版的篇幅、以《最大的建筑独角戏》(Biggest One-Man Building Show)为标题对弗雷德·特朗普进行了报道。文章描述了一个神气十足的独狼角色，他用随身携带的大叠厚厚的现金支付一切——工资、补给和土地——唯一的帮手是一名接听电话的秘书，秘书的办公室比一个停车位大不了多少。“他是自己的采购代理、司库、出纳员、大楼管理员、建造工程师和销售总监，”文章写道。

It wasn’t that simple. Fred Trump had also spent years ingratiating himself with Brooklyn’s Democratic machine, giving money, doing favors and making the sort of friends (like Abraham D. Beame, a future mayor) who could make life easier for a developer. He had also assembled a phalanx of plugged-in real estate lawyers, property appraisers and tax accountants who protected his interests.

事情并不那么简单。弗雷德·特朗普也花了好多年的时间靠捐款、送人情讨好布鲁克林的民主党机构，他还交了一些能让开发商的日子好过一点的朋友（比如后来当过纽约市长的亚伯拉罕·D·比姆[Abraham D. Beame]）。他还集结了一群拥有最新信息的房地产律师、房地产估价师和税务会计师，他们的作用是保护他的利益。

All these traits — deep experience, nimbleness, connections, a relentless focus on the efficient construction of homes for the middle class — positioned him perfectly to ride a growing wave of federal spending on housing. The wave took shape with the New Deal, grew during the World War II rush to build military housing and crested with the postwar imperative to provide homes for returning G.I.s. Fred Trump would become a millionaire many times over by making himself one of the nation’s largest recipients of cheap government-backed building loans, according to Gwenda Blair’s book “The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a President.”

所有这些特点——深厚的经验、灵活的头脑、人脉，以及把精力持续不懈地集中在高效地为中产阶级建造住房上——让他占据了有利位置，可以充分利用联邦政府日益高涨的住房支出。住房支出的增加始于新政(New Deal)时期，第二次世界大战期间为军队修建住房时有所增长，在战后为返回家园的老兵提供住房时达到高潮。据格温达·布莱尔的书《特朗普一家：三代建造者和一位总统》(The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a President)，通过让自己成为全国政府支持的廉价建筑贷款的最大受益者之一，弗雷德·特朗普揽聚了成百上千万的财富。

Those same loans became the wellspring of Donald Trump’s wealth. In the late 1940s, Fred Trump obtained roughly $26 million in federal loans to build two of his largest developments, Beach Haven Apartments, near Coney Island, Brooklyn, and Shore Haven Apartments, a few miles away. Then he set about making his children his landlords.

那些贷款也成了唐纳德·特朗普财富的来源。20世纪40年代末，弗雷德·特朗普得到了约2600万美元的联邦贷款，修建了他最大的两个开发项目——布鲁克林康尼岛附近的海滩港湾公寓(Beach Haven Apartments)、以及几英里外的海岸港湾公寓(Shore Haven Apartments)。然后他开始着手让他的孩子成为他的房东。

As ground lease payments fattened his children’s trusts, Fred Trump embarked on a far bigger transfer of wealth. Records obtained by The Times reveal how he began to build or buy apartment buildings in Brooklyn and Queens and then gradually, without public trace, transfer ownership to his children through a web of partnerships and corporations. In all, Fred Trump put up nearly $13 million in cash and mortgage debt to create a mini-empire within his empire — eight buildings with 1,032 apartments — that he would transfer to his children.

随着土地租赁付款喂肥了孩子们的信托基金，弗雷德·特朗普开始了一项规模大得多的财富转移。时报获得的记录显示了他如何开始在布鲁克林和皇后区建造或购买公寓楼，然后逐步在不留下公开踪迹的情况下，通过复杂的合伙和公司关系将所有权转移给了自己的孩子。弗雷德·特朗普总共拿出近1300万美元的现金和抵押贷款，在他的房地产帝国内建立了一个迷你帝国（包括八栋大楼共1032套公寓），他后来将这个迷你帝国转移给了自己的孩子们。

The handover began just before Donald Trump’s 16th birthday. On June 1, 1962, Fred Trump transferred a plot of land in Queens to a newly created corporation. While he would be its president, his children would be its owners, records show. Then he constructed a 52-unit building called Clyde Hall.

转移是在唐纳德·特朗普16岁生日之前开始的。1962年6月1日，弗雷德·特朗普将皇后区的一块土地转让给了一家新成立的公司。记录显示，虽然他是公司的总裁，但他的孩子们是公司的所有者。然后，他建了一栋有52个单位的名为“克莱德厅”(Clyde Hall)的建筑。

It was easy money for the Trump children. Their father took care of everything. He bought the land, built the apartments and obtained the mortgages. His employees managed the building. The profits, meanwhile, went to his children. By the early 1970s, Fred Trump would execute similar transfers of the other seven buildings.

对特朗普的孩子们来说，钱来得很容易。他们的父亲负责照管所有的事情。他购买了土地，建造了公寓，并获得了抵押贷款。他的员工管理着这栋大楼。与此同时，利润都是他的孩子们的。截至20世纪70年代初，弗雷德·特朗普对其他七栋大楼也做了类似的转交。

For Donald Trump, this meant a rapidly growing new source of income. When he was in high school, his cut of the profits was about $17,000 a year in today’s dollars. His share exceeded $300,000 a year soon after he graduated from college.

对唐纳德·特朗普来说，这意味着一个快速增长的新收入来源。当他上高中时，他每年的利润份额以如今的美元计算，大约是1.7万美元。他大学毕业后不久，他的份额已经超过了30万美元。

How Fred Trump transferred 1,032 apartments to his children without incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in gift taxes is unclear. A review of property records for the eight buildings turned up no evidence that his children bought them outright. Financial records obtained by The Times reveal only that all of the shares in the partnerships and corporations set up to create the mini-empire shifted at some point from Fred Trump to his children. Yet his tax returns show he paid no gift taxes on seven of the buildings, and only a few thousand dollars on the eighth.

目前还不清楚弗雷德·特朗普是如何将1032套公寓转让给了他的子女而不需要缴纳数十万美元赠与税的。查阅这八栋楼的房产记录，没有看到他的孩子们把楼彻底买下来的证据。时报获得的财务记录只显示，为了创建那个迷你帝国而建立起来的合伙关系和公司的所有股份，在某个时候都从弗雷德·特朗普的名下转移到了他子女的身上。然而，他的纳税申报表显示，他没有为其中的七栋楼缴纳任何赠与税，只是为第八栋楼缴纳了几千美元的税。

That building, Sunnyside Towers, a 158-unit property in Queens, illustrates Fred Trump’s catch-me-if-you-can approach with the I.R.S., which had repeatedly cited him for underpaying taxes in the 1950s and 1960s.

位于皇后区、共有158个单位的桑尼赛德大厦(Sunnyside Towers)鉴证了弗雷德·特朗普对国税局的“有本事就来抓我”的态度，国税局曾在20世纪50年代和60年代多次以逃税为由传唤过他。

Sunnyside was bought for $2.5 million in 1968 by Midland Associates, a partnership Fred Trump formed with his children for the transaction. In his 1969 tax return, he reported giving each child 15 percent of Midland Associates. Based on the amount of cash put up to buy Sunnyside, the value of this gift should have been $93,750. Instead, he declared a gift of only $6,516.

1968年，米德兰合伙人(Midland Associates)以250万美元的价格收购了桑尼赛德大厦，该公司是弗雷德·特朗普和他的孩子们为了进行这笔交易而结成的合伙关系。在他1969年的纳税申报表中，他填写的内容包括给了每个孩子15%的米德兰合伙人股份。根据购买桑尼赛德大厦的现金数量，相应的赠与价值应该是93750美元。而他只报了赠与每个子女6516美元。

Donald Trump went to work for his father after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. His father made him vice president of dozens of companies. This was also the moment Fred Trump telegraphed what had become painfully obvious to his family and employees: He did not consider his eldest son, Fred Trump Jr., a viable heir apparent.

1968年从宾夕法尼亚大学(University of Pennsylvania)毕业后，唐纳德·特朗普开始为父亲工作。父亲让他当了数十家公司的副总裁。就在这段时间，弗雷��·特朗普向家人和员工传达了一个相当明确的信息：他不认为长子小弗雷德·特朗普(Fred Trump Jr.)是一个可行的继承人。

Fred Jr., seven and a half years older than Donald, had also worked for his father after college. It did not go well, relatives and former employees said in interviews. Fred Trump openly ridiculed him for being too nice, too soft, too lazy, too fond of drink. He frowned on his interests in flying and music, could not fathom why he cared so little for the family business. Donald, witness to his father’s deepening disappointment, fashioned himself Fred Jr.’s opposite — the brash tough guy with a killer instinct. His reward was to inherit his father’s dynastic dreams.

小弗雷德比唐纳德年长七岁半，大学毕业后也为父亲工作。亲戚和前雇员在采访中说，事情并不顺利。弗雷德·特朗普公开嘲笑长子人太好、太软弱、太懒惰、太爱喝酒。他不赞成长子对飞行和音乐的兴趣，不明白长子为什么对家族的生意那么不感兴趣。唐纳德目睹了父亲对小弗雷德日益加深的失望，把自己塑造成了哥哥的反面——一个具有拼杀本能的盛气凌人的硬汉。他得到的回报是继承了他父亲的王朝梦。

Fred Trump began taking steps that enriched Donald alone, introducing him to the charms of building with cheap government loans. In 1972, father and son formed a partnership to build a high-rise for the elderly in East Orange, N.J. Thanks to government subsidies, the partnership got a nearly interest-free $7.8 million loan that covered 90 percent of construction costs. Fred Trump paid the rest.

弗雷德·特朗普开始逐步把财富聚集在唐纳德一人身上，让他认识到用廉价政府贷款盖楼的吸引力。1972年，父子俩建立了一个合伙公司，以在新泽西州东奥兰治建一栋供老年人居住的高楼。由于政府的补贴，他们的合伙公司获得了780万美元的几乎无息的贷款，相当于建设成本的90%。弗雷德·特朗普支付了其余的费用。

But his son received most of the financial benefits, records show. On top of profit distributions and consulting fees, Donald Trump was paid to manage the building, though Fred Trump’s employees handled day-to-day management. He also pocketed what tenants paid to rent air-conditioners. By 1975, Donald Trump’s take from the building was today’s equivalent of nearly $305,000 a year.

但记录显示，弗雷德·特朗普的儿子获得了经济利益的大部分。除了利润分配和咨询费外，唐纳德·特朗普得到的钱中还包括管理这栋大楼的工资，尽管是弗雷德·特朗普的员工在负责大楼的日常管理工作。唐纳德·特朗普还得到了住户租空调的费用。到1975年时，唐纳德·特朗普从这栋大楼得到的收入用今天的美元来算相当于每年将近30.5万美元。

Fred Trump also gave his son an extra boost through his investment, in the early 1970s, in the sprawling Starrett City development in Brooklyn, the largest federally subsidized housing project in the nation. The investment, which promised to generate huge tax write-offs, was tailor-made for Fred Trump; he would use Starrett City’s losses to avoid taxes on profits from his empire.

弗雷德·特朗普还通过自己的投资给了儿子额外的帮助。20世纪70年代初，他投资了位于布鲁克林的庞大的斯塔雷特城(Starrett City)开发项目，这是美国最大的联邦补贴住房项目。这笔投资有望产生巨额的税务减免，这对弗雷德·特朗普来说简直就是量身定做的；他后来利用在斯塔雷特城的损失来避免政府对其房地产帝国的利润征税。

Fred Trump invested $5 million. A separate partnership established for his children invested $1 million more, showering tax breaks on the Trump children for decades to come. They helped Donald Trump avoid paying any federal income taxes at all in 1978 and 1979. But Fred Trump also deputized him to sell a sliver of his Starrett City shares, a sweetheart deal that generated today’s equivalent of more than $1 million in “consulting fees.”

弗雷德·特朗普投资了500万美元。他为子女们建立的另一个合伙公司对这个项目又投资了100万美元，这让弗雷德的子女们在未来几十年里都能享受大量的税收优惠。这些投资帮助唐纳德·特朗普在1978年和1979年避免缴纳任何联邦所得税。弗雷德·特朗普还委托唐纳德来出售父亲所持的斯塔雷特城股份的一小部分，这项“甜心交易”给他带来相当于今天的100多万美元的“咨询费”。

The money from consulting and management fees, ground leases, the mini-empire and his salary all combined to make Donald Trump indisputably wealthy years before he sold his first Manhattan apartment. By 1975, when he was 29, he had collected nearly $9 million in today’s dollars from his father, The Times found.

在唐纳德·特朗普还远未售出他的第一套曼哈顿公寓的时候，通过咨询费和管理费、地租、迷你帝国以及薪水的形式给他的钱，就已经让他成为毫无疑问的富人。时报发现，到1975年，也就是唐纳德·特朗普29岁的时候，他从父亲那里获得的钱已经相当于今天的近900万美元。

Wealthy, yes. But a far cry from the image father and son craved for Donald Trump.

富有，是的。但这与父子两人渴望的那种唐纳德·特朗普的形象还相去甚远。

THE SILENT PARTNER

 闷声不响的合伙人

“He is tall, lean and blond, with dazzling white teeth, and he looks ever so much like Robert Redford. He rides around town in a chauffeured silver Cadillac with his initials, DJT, on the plates. He dates slinky fashion models, belongs to the most elegant clubs and, at only 30 years of age, estimates that he is worth ‘more than $200 million.’”

“他高瘦，金发，牙齿白得耀眼，看上去非常像罗伯特·雷德福(Robert Redford)。他去哪都坐一辆配司机的银色凯迪拉克，车牌上有他的姓名首字母DJT。他约会身材婀娜的时装模特，出入最高雅的会所，外界估计年方30的他身家已‘逾两亿美元’。”

So began a Nov. 1, 1976, article in The Times, one of the first major profiles of Donald Trump and a cornerstone of decades of mythmaking about his wealth. How could he claim to be worth more than $200 million when, as he divulged years later to casino regulators, his 1976 taxable income was $24,594? Donald Trump simply appropriated his father’s entire empire as his own.

1976年11月1日《纽约时报》的一篇文章这样开头，这是最早的唐纳德·特朗普人物特稿之一，也是后来几十年他的财富神话创造的一块基石。数年之后他曾向博彩业监管机构透露，他在1976年的应税收入是24594美元，他凭什么号称身家逾两亿呢？只不过把他父亲的商业帝国全算成自己的而已。

In the chauffeured Cadillac, Donald Trump took The Times’s reporter on a tour of what he called his “jobs.” He told her about the Manhattan hotel he planned to convert into a Grand Hyatt (his father guaranteed the construction loan), and the Hudson River railroad yards he planned to develop (the rights were purchased by his father’s company). He showed her “our philanthropic endeavor,” the high-rise for the elderly in East Orange (bankrolled by his father), and an apartment complex on Staten Island (owned by his father), and their “flagship,” Trump Village, in Brooklyn (owned by his father), and finally Beach Haven Apartments (owned by his father). Even the Cadillac was leased by his father.

就在那辆配司机的凯迪拉克里，唐纳德·特朗普带着《纽约时报》记者参观了他所谓的“工作”。他告诉她自己计划把曼哈顿一家酒店改造成君悦酒店（他父亲担保了建设贷款），还有他打算开发的哈德逊河铁路货场（开发权是他父亲公司买下的）。他带她看了“我们的慈善事业”，东奥兰治的高层老年公寓（由他父亲出资），史丹顿岛的一座公寓楼（由他父亲拥有），以及他们位于布鲁克林的“旗舰”项目特朗普村（由他父亲拥有），最后是天堂海滩公寓（由他父亲拥有）。连这辆凯迪拉克也是他父亲租的。

“So far,” he boasted, “I’ve never made a bad deal.”

“到现在，”他吹嘘道，“我还从没做过一笔亏本生意。”

It was a spectacular con, right down to the priceless moment when Mr. Trump confessed that he was “publicity shy.” By claiming his father’s wealth as his own, Donald Trump transformed his place in the world. A brash 30-year-old playboy worth more than $200 million proved irresistible to New York City’s bankers, politicians and journalists.

这是一场惊人的骗局，包括那个不可思议的瞬间——他坦白自己“不喜出风头”。通过把父亲的财富说成自己的，唐纳德·特朗普改变了自己的地位。事实证明，一个自吹自擂的30岁花花公子，是纽约市的银行家、政客和记者都无法抗拒的。

Yet for all the spin about cutting his own path in Manhattan, Donald Trump was increasingly dependent on his father. Weeks after The Times’s profile ran, Fred Trump set up still more trusts for his children, seeding each with today’s equivalent of $4.3 million. Even into the early 1980s, when he was already proclaiming himself one of America’s richest men, Donald Trump remained on his father’s payroll, drawing an annual salary of $260,000 in today’s dollars.

虽然在那些传说里他在曼哈顿独力开拓，唐纳德·特朗普却越来越依赖他的父亲。《纽约时报》的那篇文章见报数周之后，弗雷德·特朗普又给子女设立了更多的信托基金，每个子女都获得了相当于今天430万美元的资助。甚至到了1980年代早期，唐纳德·特朗普已经号称自己是美国最富有的人之一时，他仍在父亲那里领一份薪水，以今天的美元计算，年薪26万。

Meanwhile, Fred Trump and his companies also began extending large loans and lines of credit to Donald Trump. Those loans dwarfed what the other Trumps got, the flow so constant at times that it was as if Donald Trump had his own Money Store. Consider 1979, when he borrowed $1.5 million in January, $65,000 in February, $122,000 in March, $150,000 in April, $192,000 in May, $226,000 in June, $2.4 million in July and $40,000 in August, according to records filed with New Jersey casino regulators.

同时，弗雷德·特朗普和他的公司还开始向唐纳德·特朗普提供大笔贷款和信用额度。���些贷款让另外几个子女的所获相形见绌，有时候这些资金流源源不断，就如同唐纳德·特朗普有自己的印钞机。根据提交给新泽西州博彩业监管机构的记录，以1979年为例，他在1月借款150万美元，2月借6.5万美元，3月借12.2万美元，4月借15万美元，5月借19.2万美元，6月借22.6万美元，7月借240万美元，8月借4万美元。

In theory, the money had to be repaid. In practice, records show, many of the loans were more like gifts. Some were interest-free and had no repayment schedule. Even when loans charged interest, Donald Trump frequently skipped payments.

理论上，这些钱是要还的。实际上，记录显示，许多笔借款更像是赠与。有些是免息的，也没有还款时限。即使某些借款收取利息，唐纳德·特朗普也时常不予偿还。

This previously unreported flood of loans highlights a clear pattern to Fred Trump’s largess. When Donald Trump began expensive new projects, his father increased his help. In the late 1970s, when Donald Trump was converting the old Commodore Hotel into a Grand Hyatt, his father stepped up with a spigot of loans. Fred Trump did the same with Trump Tower in the early 1980s.

这些此前从未披露的大量贷款突显出弗雷德·特朗普慷慨解囊的清晰模式。当唐纳德·特朗普启动昂贵的新项目时，他的父亲便加大援手。1970年代后期，唐纳德·特朗普把过去的海军准将酒店(Commodore Hotel)改造成君悦酒店时，他父亲给他打开了借款的水龙头。1980年代初建设特朗普大厦时也是这样。

In the mid-1980s, as Donald Trump made his first forays into Atlantic City, Fred Trump devised a plan that sharply increased the flow of money to his son.

1980年代中期，当唐纳德·特朗普初次进军大西洋城，弗雷德·特朗普制定了一项计划，大幅增加了流向儿子的资金。

The plan involved the mini-empire — the eight buildings Fred Trump had transferred to his children. He converted seven of them into cooperatives, and helped his children convert the eighth. That meant inviting tenants to buy their apartments, generating a three-way windfall for Donald Trump and his siblings: from selling units, from renting unsold units and from collecting mortgage payments.

这个计划事关一块小产业——弗雷德·特朗普已转移到子女名下的8幢住宅楼。他把其中七幢转换为合作公寓，又帮助子女把第八幢也转了。这意味着鼓励租户把他们住的公寓买下来，如此就给唐纳德·特朗普和兄弟姐妹创造了三条财路：公寓单位销售、未售出单位的租金以及收取按揭供款。

In 1982, Donald Trump made today’s equivalent of about $380,000 from the eight buildings. As the conversions continued and Fred Trump’s employees sold off more units, his son’s share of profits jumped, records show. By 1987, with the conversions completed, his son was making today’s equivalent of $4.5 million a year off the eight buildings.

1982年，唐纳德·特朗普从这八幢楼获得的收益相当于今天的38万美元。记录显示，随着合作公寓转换继续，弗雷德·特朗普的员工卖出了更多单位，他儿子那份利润也随之跃升。到1987年全部转换完毕时，他儿子从这八幢楼获得了相当于今天450万美元的年收入。

Fred Trump made one other structural change to his empire that produced a big new source of revenue for Donald Trump and his siblings. He made them his bankers.

弗雷德·特朗普还对他的帝国做了另一项结构性改变，为唐纳德·特朗普及其兄弟姐妹带来新的收入来源。他让他们成为他的按揭贷款银行家。

The Times could find no evidence that the Trump children had to come up with money of their own to buy their father’s mortgages. Most were purchased from Fred Trump’s banks by trusts and partnerships that he set up and seeded with money.

《纽约时报》没有发现任何证据证明弗雷德·特朗普的儿女需要拿自己的钱买下父亲持有的按揭贷款。大多数贷款都是通过弗雷德·特朗普设立并注资的信托基金及合伙关系，由他自己的银行买下的。

Co-op sales, mortgage payments, ground leases — Fred Trump was a master at finding ways to enrich his children in general and Donald Trump in particular. Some ways were like slow-moving creeks. Others were rushing streams. A few were geysers. But as the decades passed they all joined into one mighty river of money. By 1990, The Times found, Fred Trump, the ultimate silent partner, had quietly transferred today’s equivalent of at least $46.2 million to his son.

合作公寓销售、按揭供款、土地租赁——在设法给所有子女尤其是唐纳德·特朗普输送财富方面，弗雷德·特朗普是个高手。有的方法是细水长流，有的是激流，有少数是喷涌。但几十年后它们都汇聚成一条金钱的大河。《纽约时报》发现，到1990年，弗雷德·特朗普这位闷声不响的合伙人已经静悄悄向儿子转出了相当于今天的4620万美元。

Donald Trump took on a mien of invincibility. The stock market crashed in 1987 and the economy cratered. But he doubled down thanks in part to Fred Trump’s banks, which eagerly extended credit to the young Trump princeling. He bought the Plaza Hotel in 1988 for $407.5 million. He bought the Eastern Airlines shuttle fleet in 1989 for $365 million and called it Trump Shuttle. His newest casino, the Trump Taj Mahal, would need at least $1 million a day just to cover its debt.

唐纳德·特朗普显现出一种所向披靡的风采。1987年美国股市崩盘，经济重创，但他却加倍下注，部分得益于弗雷德·特朗普的银行急切地向年轻的少东家提供信贷。1988年他以407.5万美元买下了纽约广场酒店(Plaza Hotel)。1989年他以3.65亿美元买下“东方航空”(Eastern Airlines)快线机队，改称“特朗普快线”(Trump Shuttle)。他最新的赌场特朗普泰姬陵赌场(Trump Taj Mahal)，每天仅偿还债务就需要至少100万美元。

The skeptics who questioned the wisdom of this debt-fueled spending spree were drowned out by one magazine cover after another marveling at someone so young taking such breathtaking risks. But whatever Donald Trump was gambling, not for one second was he at risk of losing out on a lifetime of frictionless, effortless wealth. Fred Trump had that bet covered.

质疑者认为这种由借贷支撑的狂热收购是有问题的，但一本又一本杂志的封面报道赞叹他这么年轻却敢于冒如此惊人的风险，淹没了质疑声。然而，不管唐纳德·特朗普怎样押注，以他一辈子得来不费吹灰之力的财富，他毫无蚀本之虞。赌注已由弗雷德·特朗普支付。

THE SAFETY NET DEPLOYS

 部署安全网

As the 1980s ended, Donald Trump’s big bets began to go bust. Trump Shuttle was failing to make loan payments within 15 months. The Plaza, drowning in debt, was bankrupt in four years. His Atlantic City casinos, also drowning in debt, tumbled one by one into bankruptcy.

到了1980年代末，唐纳德·特朗普下的大赌注开始赔钱。特朗普快线未能在15个月内偿还贷款。广场酒店因负债累累，四年后就破产了。他的大西洋城赌场也陷入了债务危机，一个接着一个地走向破产。

What didn’t fail was the Trump safety net. Just as Donald Trump’s finances were crumbling, family partnerships and companies dramatically increased distributions to him and his siblings. Between 1989 and 1992, tax records show, four entities created by Fred Trump to support his children paid Donald Trump today’s equivalent of $8.3 million.

但特朗普安全网没有破。就在唐纳德·特朗普的财务情况不断恶化的时候，家族合伙和公司大幅增加了派发给他和兄弟姐妹的钱。税务记录显示，在1989至1992年间，弗雷德·特朗普创建的四个支持子女的实体向唐纳德·特朗普支付了相当于今天830万美元的钱款。

Fred Trump’s generosity also provided a crucial backstop when his son pleaded with bankers in 1990 for an emergency line of credit. With so many of his projects losing money, Donald Trump had few viable assets of his own making to pledge as collateral. What has never been publicly known is that he used his stakes in the mini-empire and the high-rise for the elderly in East Orange as collateral to help secure a $65 million loan.

弗雷德·特朗普的慷慨，也为儿子在1990年向银行家们申请紧急信贷额度提供了关键的支持。由于唐纳德·特朗普的许多项目都在亏损，他手中几乎没有了任何可供抵押的资产。公众以前从不知道的是，他用自己在迷你帝国和东奥兰治老年公寓的股份作为抵押，帮助他获得了6500万美元的贷款。

Tax records also reveal that at the peak of Mr. Trump’s financial distress, his father extracted extraordinary sums from his empire. In 1990, Fred Trump’s income exploded to $49,638,928 — several times what he paid himself in other years in that era.

税收记录还显示，在唐纳德的财务困境最糟糕的时候，他的父亲从自己的商业帝国中提取出巨额钱款。1990年，弗雷德·特朗普的收入暴增至49638928美元，是他在那个时代的其他年份给自己开的工资的好几倍。

Fred Trump, former employees say, detested taking unnecessary distributions from his companies because he would have to pay income taxes on them. So why would a penny-pinching, tax-hating 85-year-old in the twilight of his career abruptly pull so much money out of his cherished properties, incurring a tax bill of $12.2 million?

前雇员们说，弗雷德·特朗普不喜欢从自己的公司获取不必要的派发钱款，因为他不得不为这些钱缴纳所得税。那么，为什么一个吝啬的、对纳税深恶痛绝的85岁老人，会在他职业生涯暮年突然从自己珍爱的房地产中抽出这么多的钱，引来了一张1220万美元的税单呢？

The Times found no evidence that Fred Trump made any significant debt payments or charitable donations. The frugality he brought to business carried over to the rest of his life. According to ledgers of his personal spending, he spent a grand total of $8,562 in 1991 and 1992 on travel and entertainment. His extravagances, such as they were, consisted of buying his wife the odd gift from Antonovich Furs or hosting family celebrations at the Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn. His home on Midland Parkway in Jamaica Estates, Queens, built with unfussy brick like so many of his apartment buildings, had little to distinguish it from neighboring houses beyond the white columns and crest framing the front door.

时报没有找到弗雷德·特朗普有任何大笔债务支付或慈善捐赠的证据。他一生在经营上恪行节俭。据他的个人支出账薄，在旅行和娱乐上，1991年和1992年他总共花了8562美元。他的奢侈消费（如果够得上奢侈的话）包括从安东诺维奇皮草行(Antonovich Furs)给妻子买的零星礼物，或在布鲁克林的彼得鲁格牛排屋(Peter Luger Steak House)举办的家庭庆祝活动。他位于皇后区牙买加庄园(Jamaica Estates)米德兰公园路(Midland Parkway)的家，与他盖的许多公寓楼一样，是用毫不讲究的砖砌成的，除了白色的立柱和大门框上的纹章外，与相邻的房子没有什么区别。

There are, however, indications that he wanted plenty of cash on hand to bail out his son if need be.

然而，有迹象表明，他想在手头上有足够的现金，以备有必要时为儿子提供紧急援助。

Such was the case with the rescue mission at his son’s Trump’s Castle casino. Donald Trump had wildly overspent on renovations, leaving the property dangerously low on operating cash. Sure enough, neither Trump’s Castle nor its owner had the necessary funds to make an $18.4 million bond payment due in December 1990.

救助儿子的特朗普城堡赌场就是一个例子。唐纳德·特朗普在改造赌场上的支出严重超支，使赌场运营现金低到了危险的程度。不论是特朗普城堡，还是城堡的所有者，无疑都无力支付1990年12月到期的1840万美元债券。

On Dec. 17, 1990, Fred Trump dispatched Howard Snyder, a trusted bookkeeper, to Atlantic City with a $3.35 million check. Mr. Snyder bought $3.35 million worth of casino chips and left without placing a bet. Apparently, even this infusion wasn’t sufficient, because that same day Fred Trump wrote a second check to Trump’s Castle, for $150,000, bank records show.

1990年12月17日，弗雷德·特朗普派值得信赖的簿记员霍华德·斯奈德(Howard Snyder)带着一张335万美元的支票前往大西洋城。斯奈德购买了价值335万美元的赌场筹码，没有下注就离开了。看来这笔资金注资还是不够，因为银行记录显示，就在同一天，弗雷德·特朗普又给特朗普城堡开出了一张15万美元的支票。

With this ruse — it was an illegal $3.5 million loan under New Jersey gaming laws, resulting in a $65,000 civil penalty — Donald Trump narrowly avoided defaulting on his bonds.

唐纳德·特朗普利用这个骗术——根据新泽西州的博彩法，这是一笔350万美元的非法贷款，会产生6.5万美元的民事罚款——勉强避免了债券违约。

BIRDS OF A FEATHER

儿子和父亲都是操纵资产价值的高手，根据他们的需要让资产看起来或者价值很高，或者不值多少。

As the chip episode demonstrated, father and son were of one mind about rules and regulations, viewing them as annoyances to be finessed or, when necessary, ignored. As described by family members and associates in interviews and sworn testimony, theirs was an intimate, endless confederacy sealed by blood, shared secrets and a Hobbesian view of what it took to dominate and win. They talked almost daily and saw each other most weekends. Donald Trump sat at his father’s right hand at family meals and participated in his father’s monthly strategy sessions with his closest advisers. Fred Trump was a silent, watchful presence at many of Donald Trump’s news conferences.

正如筹码事件所显示的那样，父子二人对规章规则的看法是一致的，他们认为那是需要巧妙处理的东西，或在必要时予以忽略。就像他们的家人和同事在采访和宣誓证词中所描述的那样，他两人的关系是一个亲密无间的永久联盟，是血缘、共享的秘密，以及对主宰和取胜的霍布斯式观点凝结而成的。他们几乎每天都通话，周末也经常见面。唐纳德·特朗普在家庭聚餐时坐在父亲的右手边，他还参加父亲与其最亲密的顾问每月一次的战略会议。在唐纳德·特朗普的许多新闻发布会上，弗雷德·特朗普都是以沉默的、保持警惕的样子出现。

“I probably knew my father as well or better than anybody,” Donald Trump said in a 2000 deposition.

“我可能像所有的人那样了解我父亲，甚至比任何人都更了解他，”唐纳德·特朗普在2000年的一份证词中说。

They were both fluent in the language of half-truths and lies, interviews and records show. They both delighted in transgressing without getting caught. They were both wizards at manipulating the value of their assets, making them appear worth a lot or a little depending on their needs.

采访和记录显示，他们都熟练地使用半真半假的语言。他俩人都以违规而不被抓为乐。他们都是操纵资产价值的行家，根据他们的需要让资产看起来或者价值很高，或者不值多少。

Those talents came in handy when Fred Trump Jr. died, on Sept. 26, 1981, at age 42 from complications of alcoholism, leaving a son and a daughter. The executors of his estate were his father and his brother Donald.

当42岁的小弗雷德·特朗普因酗酒并发症于1981年9月26日去世，留下一对儿女后，这些才能派上了用场。小弗雷德的遗产执行人是他的父亲和他的弟弟唐纳德。

Fred Trump Jr.’s largest asset was his stake in seven of the eight buildings his father had transferred to his children. The Trumps would claim that those properties were worth $90.4 million when they finished converting them to cooperatives within a few years of his death. At that value, his stake could have generated an estate tax bill of nearly $10 million.

小弗雷德·特朗普最大的资产是父亲转移给子女的八座大楼中七座的股份。在小弗雷德死后的几年内里，这些房产被改造为合作公寓的形式，特朗普家族报的改造后价值是9040万美元。按这个价值计算，小弗雷德所持的股份可能会产生近1000万美元的遗产税。

But the tax return signed by Donald Trump and his father claimed that Fred Trump Jr.’s estate owed just $737,861. This result was achieved by lowballing all seven buildings. Instead of valuing them at $90.4 million, Fred and Donald Trump submitted appraisals putting them at $13.2 million.

但是，在有唐纳德·特朗普和父亲签名的纳税申报表上，小弗雷德·特朗普的遗产账户仅欠737861美元的税款。这是通过对所有七座建筑进行过低估值来实现的。弗雷德·特朗普和唐纳德·特朗普并没有把这七座建筑估价为9040万美元，他们提交的估价把这些建筑的价值定为1320万美元。

Emblematic of their audacity was Park Briar, a 150-unit building in Queens. As it happened, 18 days before Fred Trump Jr.’s death, the Trump siblings had submitted Park Briar’s co-op conversion plan, stating under oath that the building was worth $17.1 million. Yet as Fred Trump Jr.’s executors, Donald Trump and his father claimed on the tax return that Park Briar was worth $2.9 million when Fred Trump Jr. died.

皇后区有150个单位的帕克布瑞尔(Park Briar)公寓是他们胆大冒险的象征。就在小弗雷德·特朗普去世的18天前，特朗普兄弟姐妹们提交了将帕克布瑞尔改造为合作公寓的计划，他们在受宣誓约束之下表示这栋楼价值1710万美元。然而，作为小弗雷德·特朗普的遗嘱执行人，唐纳德·特朗普和父亲在纳税申报单上声称，小弗雷德·特朗普去世时，帕克布瑞尔的价值是290万美元。

This fantastical claim — that Park Briar should be taxed as if its value had fallen 83 percent in 18 days — slid past the I.R.S. with barely a protest. An auditor insisted the value should be increased by $100,000, to $3 million.

这个荒诞的主张——即应该当作帕克布瑞尔的价值在18天里骤减了83%来计算对它的征税——躲过了国税局的眼睛，几乎没有异议。只有一个审计员坚持要把价值提高到300万美元，比原来的高出了10万美元。

During the 1980s, Donald Trump became notorious for leaking word that he was taking positions in stocks, hinting of a possible takeover, and then either selling on the run-up or trying to extract lucrative concessions from the target company to make him go away. It was a form of stock manipulation with an unsavory label: “greenmailing.” The Times unearthed evidence that Mr. Trump enlisted his father as his greenmailing wingman.

20世纪80年代，唐纳德·特朗普开始有了故意透露风声的臭名。他先是透露自己要购进某个公司的股票，暗示可能要将其收购，然后或是在股价上涨时卖出股票，或是试图让目标公司为了摆脱他而给出有利可图的让步。这是一种股票操纵形式，有一个声名狼藉称号：“绿色勒索”。时报偶然发现的证据表明，唐纳德把父亲招募来为自己的绿色勒索做帮手。

On Jan. 26, 1989, Fred Trump bought 8,600 shares of Time Inc. for $934,854, his tax returns show. Seven days later, Dan Dorfman, a financial columnist known to be chatty with Donald Trump, broke the news that the younger Trump had “taken a sizable stake” in Time. Sure enough, Time’s shares jumped, allowing Fred Trump to make a $41,614 profit in two weeks.

弗雷德·特朗普的报税表显示，1989年1月26日，他花934854美元购买了8600股时代公司(Time Inc.)的股票。七天后，众所周知与唐纳德·特朗普有私下往来的金融专栏作家丹·多尔夫曼(Dan Dorfman)透露，唐纳德·特朗普已“购买了相当份额的时代股票”。果然，时代的股价大幅上涨，弗雷德·特朗普得以在两周内获得了41614美元的利润。

Later that year, Fred Trump bought $5 million worth of American Airlines stock. Based on the share price — $81.74 — it appears he made the purchase shortly before Mr. Dorfman reported that Donald Trump was taking a stake in the company. Within weeks, the stock was over $100 a share. Had Fred Trump sold then, he would have made a quick $1.3 million. But he didn’t, and the stock sank amid skepticism about his son’s history of hyped takeover attempts that fizzled. Fred Trump sold his shares for a $1.7 million loss in January 1990. A week later, Mr. Dorfman reported that Donald Trump had sold, too.

同年晚些时候，弗雷德·特朗普购买了价值500万美元的美国航空公司股票。从弗雷德·特朗普买股票时所付的每股81.74美元的价格来看，他似乎是在多尔夫曼报道了唐纳德·特朗普正在购买美航股票的消息不久前买进的。几周内，美航股价就超过了每股100美元。如果当时弗雷德·特朗普就把股票卖掉的话，他本该能赚到130万美元的快钱。但他没有这样做，随着人们开始质疑他儿子热炒收购企图而后不了了之的前科，美航股价下跌了。弗雷德·特朗普于1990年1月卖掉了手中的股票，亏了170万美元。一周后，多尔夫曼报道说，唐纳德·特朗普也把股票卖掉了。

With other family members, Fred Trump could be cantankerous and cruel, according to sworn testimony by his relatives. “This is the stupidest thing I ever heard of,” he’d snap when someone disappointed him. He was different with his son Donald. He might chide him — “Finish this job before you start that job,” he’d counsel — but more often, he looked for ways to forgive and accommodate.

根据其亲属的宣誓证词，弗雷德·特朗普对待别的家族成员可能会暴躁、粗鲁。“这是我听过最愚蠢的事情，”有人让他失望时他会这样痛骂。对儿子唐纳德就不一样了。他也会责备——“做那件事之前先完成这一件，”他会这样规劝——但更多的时候，他想尽办法宽待和迁就他。

By 1987, for example, Donald Trump’s loan debt to his father had grown to at least $11 million. Yet canceling the debt would have required Donald Trump to pay millions in taxes on the amount forgiven. Father and son found another solution, one never before disclosed, that appears to constitute both an unreported multimillion-dollar gift and a potentially illegal tax write-off.

例如，到1987年的时候，唐纳德·特朗普在父亲那里的贷款债务已增长到至少1100万美元。即使免除债务，唐纳德·特朗普也必须缴纳数百万美元税款。父子俩想了另外的办法，这个方案此前从未披露，看起来包括一笔数百万美元未报税的赠与和一项可能非法的税务冲销。

In December 1987, records show, Fred Trump bought a 7.5 percent stake in Trump Palace, a 55-story condominium building his son was erecting on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Most, if not all, of his investment, which totaled $15.5 million, was made by exchanging his son’s unpaid debts for Trump Palace shares, records show.

记录显示，1987年12月，弗雷德·特朗普购买了特朗普宫(Trump Palace)7.5％的股份，这是他儿子正在曼哈顿上东区建造的一座55层公寓楼。记录显示，这笔总额为1550万美元的投资即便谈不上全部，至少大部分是通过把他儿子的未偿债务转为特朗普宫股份。

Four years later, in December 1991, Fred Trump sold his entire stake in Trump Palace for just $10,000, his tax returns and financial statements reveal. Those documents do not identify who bought his stake. But other records indicate that he sold it back to his son.

弗雷德·特朗普的报税表和财务报表显示，四年后，在1991年12月，他仅以1万美元价格出售了自己在特朗普宫的全部股权。这些文件并未明确是谁买下了他的股份。但其他记录显示他是卖回给了儿子。

Under state law, developers must file “offering plans” that identify to any potential condo buyer the project’s sponsors — in other words, its owners. The Trump Palace offering plan, submitted in November 1989, identified two owners: Donald Trump and his father. But under the same law, if Fred Trump had sold his stake to a third party, Donald Trump would have been required to identify the new owner in an amended offering plan filed with the state attorney general’s office. He did not do that, records show.

纽约州法律规定，开发商必须提交“销售计划书”，向未来的共管公寓购买者明确项目发起人的身份，换句话说就是物业的业主。1989年11月提交的特朗普宫销售计划书里注明了两个业主：唐纳德·特朗普和他父亲。然而同一部法律规定，如果弗雷德·特朗普把他的股份售予第三方，唐纳德·特朗普就必须在一份修订后的计划书中注明这位新的业主并提交给州检察长办公室。记录显示，他并未修订及提交计划书。

He did, however, sign a sworn affidavit a month after his father sold his stake. In the affidavit, submitted in a lawsuit over a Trump Palace contractor’s unpaid bill, Donald Trump identified himself as “the” owner of Trump Palace.

父亲售出股份一个月后，唐纳德·特朗普倒是签署了一份宣誓书。这份宣誓书曾呈交给一场关于特朗普宫建设承包商未收到应付款的诉讼，唐纳德·特朗普在宣誓书中确认自己是特朗普宫的“唯一”业主。

Under I.R.S. rules, selling shares worth $15.5 million to your son for $10,000 is tantamount to giving him a $15.49 million taxable gift. Fred Trump reported no such gift.

按国税局规定，把价值1550万美元的股份以1万美元的价格卖给儿子，就等同于给了他一份1549万美元的应税赠与。弗雷德·特朗普不曾为这份赠与报税。

According to tax experts, the only circumstance that would not have required Fred Trump to report a gift was if Trump Palace had been effectively bankrupt when he unloaded his shares.

税务专家表示，仅在一种情况下弗雷德·特朗普不需要为此申报赠与税，那就是当他脱手股份之时特朗普宫实际上已破产。

Yet Trump Palace was far from bankrupt.

而特朗普宫远未破产。

Property records show that condo sales there were brisk in 1991. Trump Palace sold 57 condos for $52.5 million — 94 percent of the total asking price for those units.

资产记录显示，1991年时该项目的公寓销售仍然活跃。特朗普宫以5250万美元价格售出了57套公寓，达到这些单位总报价的94％。

Donald Trump himself proclaimed Trump Palace “the most financially secure condominium on the market today” in advertisements he placed in 1991 to rebut criticism from buyers who complained that his business travails could drag down Trump Palace, too. In December, 17 days before his father sold his shares, he placed an ad vouching for the wisdom of investing in Trump Palace: “Smart money says there has never been a better time.”

1991年，一些购买者抱怨唐纳德·特朗普的生意困境可能也会拖累特朗普宫的价值，特朗普多次发布广告来反驳这种批评，他自己在广告中宣称特朗普宫是“当下市面上最保险的公寓”。这年12月，在他父亲售出股份前17天，他发布了一则广告打保票说，投资特朗普宫是明智之举：“聪明钱说这是前所未有的好时机。”

By failing to tell the I.R.S. about his $15.49 million gift to his son, Fred Trump evaded the 55 percent tax on gifts, saving about $8 million. At the same time, he declared to the I.R.S. that Trump Palace was almost a complete loss — that he had walked away from a $15.5 million investment with just $10,000 to show for it.

赠与儿子的1549万美元，弗雷德·特朗普没有告知国税局，他由此逃掉55％的赠与税，省下约800万美元。同时，他向国税局报称特朗普宫的投资几乎彻底蚀本——他投入1550万美元最后离场时只剩1万美元就是明证。

Federal tax law prohibits deducting any loss from the sale of property between members of the same family, because of the potential for abuse. Yet Fred Trump appears to have done exactly that, dodging roughly $5 million more in income taxes.

由于存在被滥用的可能，联邦税法禁止用任何家庭成员间出售资产的损失来抵扣应税收入。而弗雷德·特朗普似乎恰恰就是这么做的，另外又避过了约500万美元的所得税。

The partnership between Fred and Donald Trump was not simply about the pursuit of riches. At its heart lay a more ambitious project, executed to perfection over decades — to create that origin story, the myth of Donald J. Trump, Self-Made Billionaire.

弗雷德和唐纳德·特朗普的合伙关系不仅仅是为了追求财富。这个关系的核心是一个宏大得多的、在几十年里不断完善的计划——书写唐纳德·J·特朗普的崛起故事，一个白手起家的亿万富翁的神话。

Donald Trump built the foundation for the myth in the 1970s by appropriating his father’s empire as his own. By the late 1980s, instead of appropriating the empire, he was diminishing it. “It wasn’t a great business, it was a good business,” he said, as if Fred Trump ran a chain of laundromats. Yes, he told interviewers, his father was a wonderful mentor, but given the limits of his business, the most he could manage was a $1 million loan, and even that had to be repaid with interest.

1970年代唐纳德·特朗普把他父亲的商业帝国算作自己的，为这个神话打下基础。到了1980年代后期，他不再挪用这个帝国，而是开始贬损它。“那不是什么了不起的生意，也就是还不错的生意，”他说得好像弗雷德·特朗普开的是一家连锁自助洗衣房。他告诉采访者，父亲是一位出色的导师，但限于父亲的生意规模，他从父亲那里最多只能拿到100万美元的借款，而且还是要付利息的。

Through it all, Fred Trump played along. Never once did he publicly question his son’s claim about the $1 million loan. “Everything he touches seems to turn to gold,” he told The Times for that first profile in 1976. “He’s gone way beyond me, absolutely,” he said when The Times profiled his son again in 1983. But for all Fred Trump had done to build the myth of Donald Trump, Self-Made Billionaire, there was, it turned out, one line he would not allow his son to cross.

弗雷德·特朗普全程配合。他从未公开质疑儿子对100万美元借款说法。“好像什么东西只要他一碰就都变成了黄金，”在1976年那篇人物特稿中他这样告诉《纽约时报》。“他比我强多了，绝对，”1983年《纽约时报》再次报道他儿子时他说。不过事实证明，尽管在“白手起家的亿万富翁唐纳德·特朗普”这个神话营造过程中不遗余力，弗雷德·特朗普还是设下了一条不许儿子越过的界线。

A FAMILY RECKONING

 一场家族算计

Fred Trump had given careful thought to what would become of his empire after he died, and had hired one of the nation’s top estate lawyers to draft his will. But in December 1990, Donald Trump sent his father a document, drafted by one of his own lawyers, that sought to make significant changes to that will.

弗雷德·特朗普对他的商业帝国在自己去世后会怎样有过仔细的考虑，他聘请了美国顶尖的遗产律师之一来为自己起草遗嘱。但是，唐纳德·特朗普在1990年12月交给了父亲一份由他自己的一名律师起草的文件，试图对父亲的遗嘱做一项重大修改。

Fred Trump, then 85, had never before set eyes on the document, 12 pages of dense legalese. Nor had he authorized its preparation. Nor had he met the lawyer who drafted it.

当时已85岁的弗雷德·特朗普在那之前从未看到过这份长达12页、充满法律术语的文件。他也未曾授权任何人准备这份文件，也没有见过起草这份文件的律师。

Yet his son sent instructions that he needed to sign it immediately.

然而，他的儿子却吩咐说，需要立即在文件上签字。

What happened next was described years later in sworn depositions by members of the Trump family during a dispute, later settled, over the inheritance Fred Trump left to Fred Jr.’s children. These depositions, obtained by The Times, reveal something startling: Fred Trump believed that the document potentially put his life’s work at risk.

好多年后，特朗普家族的成员在一场后来达成和解的纠纷中宣誓作证时描述了接下来发生的事情。（那场纠纷是关于弗雷德·特朗普留给小弗雷德的孩子们的遗产的。）时报获得的这些证词揭示了一件惊人的事情：弗雷德·特朗普认为，那份文件可能会让他一生的工作面临危险。

The document, known as a codicil, did many things. It protected Donald Trump’s portion of the inheritance from his creditors and from his impending divorce settlement with his first wife, Ivana Trump. It strengthened provisions in the existing will making him the sole executor of his father’s estate. But more than any of the particulars, it was the entirety of the codicil and its presentation as a fait accompli that alarmed Fred Trump, the depositions show. He confided to family members that he viewed the codicil as an attempt to go behind his back and give his son total control over his affairs. He said he feared that it could let Donald Trump denude his empire, even using it as collateral to rescue his failing businesses. (It was, in fact, the very month of the $3.5 million casino rescue.)

这份被称为遗嘱修改附录的文件做了很多事情。文件保护了唐纳德·特朗普继承的那部分遗产不成为债权人追债的目标，也不受他即将与第一任妻子伊万娜·特朗普(Ivana Trump)达成的离婚协议的影响。文件加强了原有遗嘱中让他作为父亲遗产的唯一遗嘱执行人的条款。但家人的证词显示，比其中的细节更让弗雷德·特朗普担心的，是整个遗嘱修改附录，以及把这个附录作为既成事实让他签字的做法。他向家人吐露，他认为这份附录是试图在背地里让儿子完全控制他的事务。他说，他担心这会让唐纳德·特朗普削弱他的商业帝国，甚至会将其作为抵押品来挽救唐纳德·特朗普濒临破产的生意。（事实上，挽救赌场的350万美元就是在那个月支付的。）

As close as they were — or perhaps because they were so close — Fred Trump did not immediately confront his son. Instead he turned to his daughter Maryanne Trump Barry, then a federal judge whom he often consulted on legal matters. “This doesn’t pass the smell test,” he told her, she recalled during her deposition. When Judge Barry read the codicil, she reached the same conclusion. “Donald was in precarious financial straits by his own admission,” she said, “and Dad was very concerned as a man who worked hard for his money and never wanted any of it to leave the family.” (In a brief telephone interview, Judge Barry declined to comment.)

弗雷德·特朗普与儿子的关系如此亲密——或许正是因为他们如此亲密——他并没有当即与儿子对质，而是向女儿玛丽安·特朗普·巴里(Maryanne Trump Barry)求助，女儿当时是一名联邦法官，弗雷德经常向女儿咨询法律事务。据女儿在证词中回忆，弗雷德对女儿说，“这东西有点不对头。”当巴里读了遗嘱修改附录后，她得出了同样的结论。“唐纳德自己承认，他的经济状况非常糟糕，”她说。“而爸爸是一个为挣这些钱拼命工作了一辈子的人，他从来都不希望他挣来的钱离开这个家，所以他对此非常担心。”（在一次简短的电话采访中，巴里拒绝置评。）

Fred Trump took prompt action to thwart his son. He dispatched his daughter to find new estate lawyers. One of them took notes on the instructions she passed on from her father: “Protect assets from DJT, Donald’s creditors.” The lawyers quickly drafted a new codicil stripping Donald Trump of sole control over his father’s estate. Fred Trump signed it immediately.

弗雷德·特朗普迅速采取行动阻挠了儿子的做法。他派女儿找来新的遗产律师。其中一名律师把她传达的父亲的吩咐记了下来：“不让DJT、唐纳德的债权人碰资产。”律师们很快起草了一份新的遗嘱修改附录，剥夺了唐纳德·特朗普作为父亲遗产的唯一控制人的权利。弗雷德·特朗普立即在上面签了字。

Clumsy as it was, Donald Trump’s failed attempt to change his father’s will brought a family reckoning about two related issues: Fred Trump’s declining health and his reluctance to relinquish ownership of his empire. Surgeons had removed a neck tumor a few years earlier, and he would soon endure hip replacement surgery and be found to have mild senile dementia. Yet for all the financial support he had lavished on his children, for all his abhorrence of taxes, Fred Trump had stubbornly resisted his advisers’ recommendations to transfer ownership of his empire to the children to minimize estate taxes.

虽然唐纳德·特朗普的做法有些笨拙，但他试图改变父亲遗嘱未遂的事情让家人不得不考虑两个相关的问题：弗雷德·特朗普日益不佳的健康状况，以及他不愿放弃对自己帝国的所有权的问题。几年前，外科医生曾切除了他颈部的一个肿瘤，他不久还会接受髋关节置换手术，后来又发现患有轻度老年失智。然而，尽管弗雷德·特朗普为子女们提供了大量的财物支持，尽管他对纳税深恶痛绝，但他一直在固执地拒绝顾问们的建议，即将自己的帝国的所有权移交给子女们，这样可以把遗产税降至最低。

With every passing year, the actuarial odds increased that Fred Trump would die owning apartment buildings worth many hundreds of millions of dollars, all of it exposed to the 55 percent estate tax. Just as exposed was the mountain of cash he was sitting on. His buildings, well maintained and carrying little debt, consistently produced millions of dollars a year in profits. Even after he paid himself $109.7 million from 1988 through 1993, his companies were holding $50 million in cash and investments, financial records show. Tens of millions of dollars more passed each month through a maze of personal accounts at Chase Manhattan Bank, Chemical Bank, Manufacturers Hanover Trust, UBS, Bowery Savings and United Mizrahi, an Israeli bank.

随着时间一年一年地过去，一种可能性也变得越来越大，那就是，弗雷德·特朗普去世时仍拥有价值数亿美元的公寓楼，所有这些楼都将面临55%的遗产税。同样面临高遗产税的是他坐拥的巨额现金。他的大楼都维修得很好，债务也很少，每年都给他带来数百万美元的利润。财务记录显示，即使他在1988年至1993年间给自己支付了1.097亿美元的薪酬之后，他的公司仍持有5000万美元的现金和投资。每个月还有数千万美元的现金从他在大通曼哈顿银行(Chase Manhattan Bank)、化工银行(Chemical Bank)、制造商汉诺威信托(Manufacturers Hanover Trust)、瑞银(UBS)、宝威利储蓄银行(Bowery Savings)，以及以色列的联合东方银行(United Mizrahi)的错综复杂的个人账户中转来转去。

Simply put, without immediate action, Fred Trump’s heirs faced the prospect of losing hundreds of millions of dollars to estate taxes.

简言之，如果不立即采取行动，弗雷德·特朗普的继承人们可能会因遗产税损失数亿美元。

Whatever their differences, the Trumps formulated a plan to avoid this fate. How they did it is a story never before told.

尽管存在种种分歧，特朗普一家制定了一个避免这种命运的计划。他们如何做成了这件事，是一个此前从未有人讲过的故事。

It is also a story in which Donald Trump played a central role. He took the lead in strategy sessions where the plan was devised with the consent and participation of his father and his father’s closest advisers, people who attended the meetings told The Times. Robert Trump, the youngest sibling and the beta to Donald’s alpha, was given the task of overseeing day-to-day details. After years of working for his brother, Robert Trump went to work for his father in late 1991.

这也是一个唐纳德·特朗普在其中起了核心作用的故事。他带头召集了几次战略会议，参加过会议的人对时报说，他在有父亲和父亲最亲密的顾问们参与及同意的情况下，制定了这个计划。最小的弟弟罗伯特·特朗普(Robert Trump)是性情与唐纳德·特朗普截然不同的人，罗伯特被赋予负责日常细节的任务。在为哥哥工作了多年后，罗伯特·特朗普在1991年底开始为父亲工作。

The Trumps’ plan, executed over the next decade, blended traditional techniques — such as rewriting Fred Trump’s will to maximize tax avoidance — with unorthodox strategies that tax experts told The Times were legally dubious and, in some cases, appeared to be fraudulent. As a result, the Trump children would gain ownership of virtually all of their father’s buildings without having to pay a penny of their own. They would turn the mountain of cash into a molehill of cash. And hundreds of millions of dollars that otherwise would have gone to the United States Treasury would instead go to Fred Trump’s children.

特朗普家的计划在接下来的10年里得到了执行，该计划将传统的技术（比如为了最大幅度地避税改写弗雷德·特朗普的遗嘱）与非常规的策略结合起来，税务专家对时报说，这些非常规策略在法律上有些可疑，在某些情况下，看起来具有欺诈性。结果是，特朗普的子女们不花一分钱就拥有了父亲几乎所有的房地产。他们把堆积如山的现金变成了一小笔钱。数亿美元原本会流入美国财政部的金钱，最终流进了弗雷德·特朗普子女们的腰包。

‘A DISGUISED GIFT’

 一个家族公司让弗雷德·特朗普得以将钱输送给子女们，其办法实际上等于在对自己的房产进行维护和修缮时向自己收取过高的费用。

One of the first steps came on Aug. 13, 1992, when the Trumps incorporated a company named All County Building Supply & Maintenance.

这种做法的头几步之一发生在1992年8月13日，特朗普家人在那天成立了一家名叫“奥康提楼宇物资及维修”的公司。

All County had no corporate offices. Its address was the Manhasset, N.Y., home of John Walter, a favorite nephew of Fred Trump’s. Mr. Walter, who died in January, spent decades working for Fred Trump, primarily helping computerize his payroll and billing systems. He also was the unofficial keeper of Fred Trump’s personal and business papers, his basement crowded with boxes of old Trump financial records. John Walter and the four Trump children each owned 20 percent of All County, records show.

这家公司没有办公场所。公司的地址在纽约州的曼哈塞特，也就是弗雷德·特朗普最喜欢的侄子约翰·沃尔特(John Walter)的家。沃尔特已于今年1月去世，他曾为弗雷德·特朗普工作了几十年，主要是帮助弗雷德·特朗普将其工资和开账单系统计算机化。他也是弗雷德·特朗普私人文件和商业文件的非正式保管人，他的地下室里塞满了成箱的老特朗普的旧财务记录。记录显示，约翰·沃尔特和特朗普的四个子女分别拥有这家公司20%的股份。

All County’s main purpose, The Times found, was to enable Fred Trump to make large cash gifts to his children and disguise them as legitimate business transactions, thus evading the 55 percent tax.

时报发现，这家公司的主要目的是为了让弗雷德·特朗普能够对他的子女们进行大笔的现金赠与，并把赠与伪装成合法的商业交易，从而逃避55%的赠与税。

The way it worked was remarkably simple.

其原理非常简单。

Each year Fred Trump spent millions of dollars maintaining and improving his properties. Some of the vendors who supplied his building superintendents and maintenance crews had been cashing Fred Trump’s checks for decades. Starting in August 1992, though, a different name began to appear on their checks — All County Building Supply & Maintenance.

弗雷德·特朗普每年花费数百万美元维护和改善他的房地产。一些为他提供大楼管理员和维修人员的公司几十年来一直在兑现弗雷德·特朗普的支票。但是，从1992年8月开始，这些支票的户头开始出现了一个不同的名字——奥康提楼宇物资及维修。

Mr. Walter’s computer systems, meanwhile, churned out All County invoices that billed Fred Trump’s empire for those same services and supplies, with one difference: All County’s invoices were padded, marked up by 20 percent, or 50 percent, or even more, records show.

与此同时，沃尔特的计算机系统以奥康提楼宇物资及维修的名义向了弗雷德·特朗普的帝国提交了大批提供相同服务和物资的费用清单，但有一点不同：记录显示，奥康提楼宇物资及维修的费用清单都比实际费用高，有时高20%，有时高50%、甚至更多。

The Trump siblings split the markup, along with Mr. Walter.

特朗普兄弟姐妹们和沃尔特分摊了这些涨幅。

The self-dealing at the heart of this arrangement was best illustrated by Robert Trump, whose father paid him a $500,000 annual salary. He approved many of the payments Fred Trump’s empire made to All County; he was also All County’s chief executive, as well as a co-owner. As for the work of All County — generating invoices — that fell to Mr. Walter, also on Fred Trump’s payroll, along with a personal assistant Mr. Walter paid to work on his side businesses.

罗伯特·特朗普最能说明这一做法的核心是内部交易，他父亲给他开了50万美元的年薪。弗雷德·特朗普的商业帝国支付给奥康提的许多款项都是他批准的，他是奥康提的首席执行官，也是共同所有人。奥康提这边的工作，也就是开具发票，则落在约翰·沃尔特肩上，他也在弗雷德·特朗普那里领薪水，此外还有沃特尔雇来帮他处理其他生意的一名助理。

Years later, in his deposition during the dispute over Fred Trump’s estate, Robert Trump would say that All County actually saved Fred Trump money by negotiating better deals. Given Fred Trump’s long experience expertly squeezing better prices out of contractors, it was a surprising claim. It was also not true.

几年后，在弗雷德·特朗普遗产引发的纠纷期间，罗伯特·特朗普会在他的证词中说，奥康提通过谈下更好的交易实际上给弗雷德·特朗普省了钱。考虑到弗雷德·特朗普久已擅长向承包商索要更好的价格，这是个让人感到意外的说法。并且也不属实。

The Times’s examination of thousands of pages of financial documents from Fred Trump’s buildings shows that his costs shot up once All County entered the picture.

《纽约时报》查核了弗雷德·特朗普持有楼宇的数千页财务文件，发现只要奥康提一出现，他的成本就猛增。

Beach Haven Apartments illustrates how this happened: In 1991 and 1992, Fred Trump bought 78 refrigerator-stove combinations for Beach Haven from Long Island Appliance Wholesalers. The average price was $642.69. But in 1993, when he began paying All County for refrigerator-stove combinations, the price jumped by 46 percent. Likewise, the price he paid for trash-compacting services at Beach Haven increased 64 percent. Janitorial supplies went up more than 100 percent. Plumbing repairs and supplies rose 122 percent. And on it went in building after building. The more Fred Trump paid, the more All County made, which was precisely the plan.

天堂海滩公寓就说明了这种情况：在1991及1992年，弗雷德·特朗普从长岛电器批发公司(Long Island Appliance Wholesalers)为天堂海滩公寓购买了78套冰箱灶具组合。平均单价是642.69美元。但在1993年他开始付钱给奥康提采购冰箱灶具组合，价格就跃升了46%。同样，他为天堂海滩公寓垃圾压缩服务支付的费用也上涨了64%。保洁用品的费用涨了100%。管道维修及物资费用涨了122%。这种情况随后在一幢又一幢公寓接续发生。弗雷德·特朗普花得越多，奥康提挣得就越多，这就是他们的计划。

While All County systematically overcharged Fred Trump for thousands of items, the job of negotiating with vendors fell, as it always had, to Fred Trump and his staff.

当奥康提在数千种物品上全面向弗雷德·特朗普多收费用时，同供应商讨价还价的任务则一如既往地落到弗雷德·特朗普和他的员工身上。

Leon Eastmond can attest to this.

利昂·伊斯特蒙德(Leon Eastmond)可以证明。

Mr. Eastmond is the owner of A. L. Eastmond & Sons, a Bronx company that makes industrial boilers. In 1993, he and Fred Trump met at Gargiulo’s, an old-school Italian restaurant in Coney Island that was one of Fred Trump’s favorites, to hash out the price of 60 boilers. Fred Trump, accompanied by his secretary and Robert Trump, drove a hard bargain. After negotiating a 10 percent discount, he made one last demand: “I had to pay the tab,” Mr. Eastmond recalled with a chuckle.

伊斯特蒙德是A·L·伊斯特蒙德父子公司(A. L. Eastmond & Sons)的所有人，这是布朗克斯的一家工业锅炉制造商。1993年，他与弗雷德·特朗普在康尼岛上特朗普最喜爱一家传统意大利餐厅Gargiulo’s见面，敲定60套锅炉的价钱。弗雷德·特朗普带着秘书和罗伯特·特朗普，开始了艰难的讨价还价。谈下10%的折扣之后，他又提了最后一个要求：“饭钱得我来付。”伊斯特蒙德笑着回忆道。

There was no mention of All County. Mr. Eastmond first heard of the company when its checks started rolling in. “I remember opening my mail one day and out came a check for $100,000,” he recalled. “I didn’t recognize the company. I didn’t know who the hell they were.”

饭桌上没有提到奥康提。伊斯特蒙德是在支票开始寄来时才头一次听说这家公司。“我记得有一天打开邮箱收到一张10万美元的支票，”他回忆说。“我不认得那家公司。我不知道他们到底是谁。”

But as All County paid Mr. Eastmond the price negotiated by Fred Trump, its invoices to Fred Trump were padded by 20 to 25 percent, records obtained by The Times show. This added hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of the 60 boilers, money that then flowed through All County to Fred Trump’s children without incurring any gift tax.

但纽约时报获得的记录显示，奥康提按照弗雷德·特朗普谈下来的价钱向伊斯特蒙德付了款，给弗雷德·特朗普开出的发票却上浮了20-25%。这让60台锅炉的成本多出数十万美元，这笔钱通过奥康提流向弗雷德·特朗普的子女，又完全不必缴纳赠与税。

All County’s owners devised another ruse to profit off Mr. Eastmond’s boilers. To win Fred Trump’s business, Mr. Eastmond had also agreed to provide mobile boilers for Fred Trump’s buildings free of charge while new boilers were being installed. Yet All County charged Fred Trump rent on the same mobile boilers Mr. Eastmond was providing free, along with hookup fees, disconnection fees, transportation fees and operating and maintenance fees, records show. These charges siphoned hundreds of thousands of dollars more from Fred Trump’s empire.

奥康提的所有人又设计出另一个伎俩从伊斯特蒙德的锅炉上获利。为谈下弗雷德·特朗普的业务，伊斯特蒙德还同意在新锅炉安装过程中，为弗雷德·特朗普的公寓楼免费提供移动式锅炉。然而记录显示，就用伊斯特蒙德免费提供的这些移动锅炉，奥康提向弗雷德·特朗普收取了租金，以及接入费、撤出费、运输费和运营维护费。这些收费又从弗雷德·特朗普的帝国里吸走了数十万美元。

Mr. Walter, asked during a deposition why Fred Trump chose not to make himself one of All County’s owners, replied, “He said because he would have to pay a death tax on it.”

在一份证词中，沃尔特被问及为什么弗雷德·特朗普不让自己也成为奥康提的所有人之一，他回答说，“他说因为那样的话死了还要为它交遗产税。”

After being briefed on All County by The Times, Mr. Tritt, the University of Florida law professor, said the Trumps’ use of the company was “highly suspicious” and could constitute criminal tax fraud. “It certainly looks like a disguised gift,” he said.

听取了《纽约时报》关于奥康提的简述后，佛罗里达大学法学教授特里特说特朗普家族对这家公司的使用“极其可疑”，并有可能构成税务欺诈的刑事罪。“这看上去是明显的变相赠与。”他说。

While All County was all upside for Donald Trump and his siblings, it had an insidious downside for Fred Trump’s tenants.

奥康提给唐纳德·特朗普和兄弟姐妹带来的全是好处，给弗雷德·特朗普的公寓租户却带来一个隐患。

As an owner of rent-stabilized buildings in New York, Fred Trump needed state approval to raise rents beyond the annual increases set by a government board. One way to justify a rent increase was to make a major capital improvement. It did not take much to get approval; an invoice or canceled check would do if the expense seemed reasonable.

作为纽约州租金稳定型公寓楼的业主，弗雷德·特朗普提高房租如果超出了政府指导委员会设定的租金逐年涨幅限制，就必须先获得州政府批准。涨房租的一种合理化手段就是花钱进行重大修缮。这样就比较容易获得批准，如果花费看上去合理，一张发票或已付支票就管用。

The Trumps used the padded All County invoices to justify higher rent increases in Fred Trump’s rent-regulated buildings. Fred Trump, according to Mr. Walter, saw All County as a way to have his cake and eat it, too. If he used his “expert negotiating ability” to buy a $350 refrigerator for $200, he could raise the rent based only on that $200, not on the $350 sticker price “a normal person” would pay, Mr. Walter explained. All County was the way around this problem. “You have to understand the thinking that went behind this,” he said.

特朗普家族就用奥康提注了水的发票，使弗雷德·特朗普名下受到租金监管的公寓楼合理地涨了更高的房租。根据沃尔特的说法，弗雷德·特朗普也把奥康提看作鱼和熊掌兼得的手段。如果他能用“专家级的讲价能力”只花200美元买到350美元的冰箱，他就只能依据这200美元来涨房租，而不是依据“一般人”花费的350美元标价，沃尔特这样解释。奥康提就是绕开这个问题的办法。“你必须明白这背后的心思，”他说。

As Robert Trump acknowledged in his deposition, “The higher the markup would be, the higher the rent that might be charged.”

就像罗伯特·特朗普在证词中承认的，“加价越高，能收的租金就越高。”

State records show that after All County’s creation, the Trumps got approval to raise rents on thousands of apartments by claiming more than $30 million in major capital improvements. Tenants repeatedly protested the increases, almost always to no avail, the records show.

州政府的记录显示，奥康提公司成立后，特朗普家族报称花费逾3000万美元进行重大修缮，为数千套公寓提高租金获得了批准。记录显示，租户多次抗议涨租，几乎总是无济于事。

One of the improvements most often cited by the Trumps: new boilers.

特朗普家族最常用到的修缮项目之一就是新锅炉。

“All of this smells like a crime,” said Adam S. Kaufmann, a former chief of investigations for the Manhattan district attorney’s office who is now a partner at the law firm Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss. While the statute of limitations has long since lapsed, Mr. Kaufmann said the Trumps’ use of All County would have warranted investigation for defrauding tenants, tax fraud and filing false documents.

“这一切颇有犯罪之嫌，”亚当·S·考夫曼(Adam S. Kaufmann)说，他曾是曼哈顿地区检察官办公室的调查主管，现在是LBKM律师事务所(Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss)合伙人。虽然早过了诉讼时效，但考夫曼表示，特朗普家族对奥康提公司的运用已足令司法机关对其进行欺诈租户、逃税和提交虚假文件的调查。

Mr. Harder, the president’s lawyer, disputed The Times’s reporting: “Should The Times state or imply that President Trump participated in fraud, tax evasion or any other crime, it will be exposing itself to substantial liability and damages for defamation.”

总统的律师哈德对《纽约时报》的报道提出反驳：“如果《纽约时报》声称特朗普总统参与了欺诈、逃税或任何其他罪行，那么它将面临因诽谤而要承担的重大责任和损失。”

All County was not the only company the Trumps set up to drain cash from Fred Trump’s empire. A lucrative income source for Fred Trump was the management fees he charged his buildings. His primary management company, Trump Management, earned $6.8 million in 1993 alone. The Trumps found a way to redirect those fees to the children, too.

特朗普家族用来从弗雷德·特朗普帝国抽取资金的公司，并非仅奥康提一家。弗雷德·特朗普持有公寓楼收取的管理费是他一项可观收入的来源。他主要物业管理公司特朗普管理公司(Trump Management)仅在1993年就赚了680万美元。特朗普家族同样设法将这些钱转移给子女。

On Jan. 21, 1994, they created a company called Apartment Management Associates Inc., with a mailing address at Mr. Walter’s Manhasset home. Two months later, records show, Apartment Management started collecting fees that had previously gone to Trump Management.

1994年1月21日，他们成立了公寓管理联营公司(Apartment Management Associates Inc.)，公司的邮件地址就是沃尔特在曼哈塞特的家。记录显示，两个月后，公寓管理公司就开始收取以前交给特朗普管理公司的各项费用。

The only difference was that Donald Trump and his siblings owned Apartment Management.

唯一的不同在于公寓管理公司的所有人是唐纳德·特朗普和兄弟姐妹。

Between All County and Apartment Management, Fred Trump’s mountain of cash was rapidly dwindling. By 1998, records show, All County and Apartment Management were generating today’s equivalent of $2.2 million a year for each of the Trump children. Whatever income tax they owed on this money, it was considerably less than the 55 percent tax Fred Trump would have owed had he simply given each of them $2.2 million a year.

奥康提和公寓管理公司左右夹击，弗雷德·特朗普的大量现金迅速减少。记录显示，到1998年，奥康提和公寓管理公司每年为弗雷德·特朗普每个子女带来相当于今天的220万美元。无论他们要为这笔钱交多少所得税，都远远低于弗雷德·特朗普每年直接给他们每人220万美元需要缴纳的55％的税。

But these savings were trivial compared with those that would come when Fred Trump transferred his empire — the actual bricks and mortar — to his children.

但是，比起弗雷德·特朗普把整个帝国——砖瓦构建的实体——移交给子女时将要省下来的税，这些都微不足道。

THE ALCHEMY OF VALUE

In his 90th year, Fred Trump still showed up at work a few days a week, ever dapper in suit and tie. But he had trouble remembering names — his dementia was getting worse — and he could get confused. In May 1995, with an unsteady hand, he signed documents granting Robert Trump power of attorney to act “in my name, place and stead.”

在弗雷德·特朗普90岁那年，他每周仍有几天去上班，而且总是衣冠楚楚，穿着西装，打着领带。但他已经记不起人名字了——他的失智症正变得越来越严重——他有时会感到困惑。1995年5月，他用不太稳的手在文件上签了字，授予罗伯特·特朗普代理权，以“我的名义和身份，代替我”行事。

Six months later, on Nov. 22, the Trumps began transferring ownership of most of Fred Trump’s empire. (A few properties were excluded.) The instrument they used to do this was a special type of trust with a clunky acronym only a tax lawyer could love: GRAT, short for grantor-retained annuity trust.

六个月后的11月22日，特朗普家族开始转移弗雷德·特朗普大部分帝国的所有权。（几处房地产没有被包括进来。）他们用来做这件事的工具是一种特殊类型的信托，有一个只有税务律师才会喜欢的笨拙的首字母缩写：GRAT，全称是“捐赠者保留年金信托”(grantor-retained annuity trust)。

GRATs are one of the tax code’s great gifts to the ultrawealthy. They let dynastic families like the Trumps pass wealth from one generation to the next — be it stocks, real estate, even art collections — without paying a dime of estate taxes.

这种信托是美国税法送给超级富豪的一份厚礼。它让特朗普这样的王朝家族把财富从一代传给下一代——无论是股票、房地产，还是艺术品收藏——而无需缴纳一分钱的遗产税。

The details are numbingly complex, but the mechanics are straightforward. For the Trumps, it meant putting half the properties to be transferred into a GRAT in Fred Trump’s name and the other half into a GRAT in his wife’s name. Then Fred and Mary Trump gave their children roughly two-thirds of the assets in their GRATs. The children bought the remaining third by making annuity payments to their parents over the next two years. By Nov. 22, 1997, it was done; the Trump children owned nearly all of Fred Trump’s empire free and clear of estate taxes.

这种信托的细节复杂得让人发懵，但机制却很简单。对特朗普家族来说，这意味着把一半财产转移到弗雷德·特朗普名下的GRAT，把另一半财产转移到他妻子名下的GRAT。然后，弗雷德和玛丽·特朗普将他们各自的GRAT信托中大约三分之二的财产给他们的子女。子女们在接下来的两年里，通过向父母支付年金的方式购买余下的三分之一。1997年11月22日，大功告成；特朗普子女们拥有了弗雷德·特朗普的几乎全部帝国，而不用付任何遗产税。

As for gift taxes, the Trumps found a way around those, too.

至于赠与税，特朗普家族也找到了避免的办法。

The entire transaction turned on one number: the market value of Fred Trump’s empire. This determined the amount of gift taxes Fred and Mary Trump owed for the portion of the empire they gave to their children. It also determined the amount of annuity payments their children owed for the rest.

整个交易取决于一个数字：弗雷德·特朗普帝国的市场价值。这个价值决定了弗雷德和玛丽·特朗普把房地产帝国的一部分给子女们所应付的赠与税，也决定了子女们拿到帝国其余部分需要支付给父母的年金金额。

The I.R.S. recognizes that GRATs create powerful incentives to greatly undervalue assets, especially when those assets are not publicly traded stocks with transparent prices. Indeed, every $10 million reduction in the valuation of Fred Trump’s empire would save the Trumps either $10 million in annuity payments or $5.5 million in gift taxes. This is why the I.R.S. requires families taking advantage of GRATs to submit independent appraisals and threatens penalties for those who lowball valuations.

国税局承认，GRAT为大幅低估资产价值制造了强大的动机，尤其是当资产不是公开交易的股票，没有透明的价格时。的确，弗雷德·特朗普帝国的价值每减少1000万美元，特朗普子女们就能少给父母1000万美元的年金，父母则可少缴550万美元的赠与税。正因如此，国税局要求想利用GRAT的家庭提交独立的资产评估，并威胁对低估价值的人予以惩罚。

In practice, though, gift tax returns get little scrutiny from the I.R.S. It is an open secret among tax practitioners that evasion of gift taxes is rampant and rarely prosecuted. Punishment, such as it is, usually consists of an auditor’s requiring a tax payment closer to what should have been paid in the first place. “GRATs are typically structured so that no tax is due, which means the I.R.S. has reduced incentive to audit them,” said Mitchell Gans, a professor of tax law at Hofstra University. “So if a gift is in fact undervalued, it may very well go unnoticed.”

但是，在实践中，赠与税的报税表很少受到国税局的严密审查。税务从业人员中一个公开的秘密是，逃避赠与税的做法相当猖獗，而且很少受到起诉。处罚虽说是有，但通常不过是审计师要求支付与原本应该支付的税款更接近的数目而已。“GRAT的典型结构是让所涉及者不需缴税，这意味着国税局缺少审计这种信托的积极性，”霍夫斯特拉大学(Hofstra University)税法教授米切尔·甘斯(Mitchell Gans)说。“因此，如果一笔赠与实际上被低估了的话，它可能非常容易不引起注意。”

This appears to be precisely what the Trumps were counting on. The Times found evidence that the Trumps dodged hundreds of millions of dollars in gift taxes by submitting tax returns that grossly undervalued the real estate assets they placed in Fred and Mary Trump’s GRATs.

这似乎正是特朗普家族确信会发生的。时报发现的证据表明，特朗普家族提交的纳税申报表，严重低估了转移到弗雷德和玛丽·特朗普的GRAT中的房地产资产的价值，从而逃避了数亿美元的赠与税。

According to Fred Trump’s 1995 gift tax return, obtained by The Times, the Trumps claimed that properties including 25 apartment complexes with 6,988 apartments — and twice the floor space of the Empire State Building — were worth just $41.4 million. The implausibility of this claim would be made plain in 2004, when banks put a valuation of nearly $900 million on that same real estate.

据时报获得的弗雷德·特朗普1995年提交的赠与税申报表显示，特朗普夫妇声称，他们的房地产包括25栋公寓大楼，总共有6988套公寓——相当于帝国大厦建筑面积的两倍，但这些财产的价值仅为4140万美元。2004年，他们的说法显然变得毫无道理，银行那年对同一批房地产的估价接近9亿美元。

The methods the Trumps used to pull off this incredible shrinking act were hatched in the strategy sessions Donald Trump participated in during the early 1990s, documents and interviews show. Their basic strategy had two components: Get what is widely known as a “friendly” appraisal of the empire’s worth, then drive that number even lower by changing the ownership structure to make the empire look less valuable to the I.R.S.

文件和采访显示，特朗普家族用来实现这种令人难以置信的财产缩水的方法，是在1990年代初唐纳德·特朗普参与的战略会议上酝酿出来的。他们的基本战略有两个组成部分：得到对房地产帝国价值的所谓“友好”估价，然后通过改变所有权结构把这个数字压得更低，从而使房地产帝国在国税局眼里不那么值钱。

A crucial step was finding a property appraiser attuned to their needs. As anyone who has ever bought or sold a home knows, appraisers can arrive at sharply different valuations depending on their methods and assumptions. And like stock analysts, property appraisers have been known to massage those methods and assumptions in ways that coincide with their clients’ interests.

关键的一步是找到一位熟悉他们需求的房地产估价师。任何曾经买卖过房子的人都知道，估价师的估价会因其方法和假设的不同而相差很大。与股票分析师一样，人们知道房地产估价师有时会用符合客户利益的方式来调整其使用的方法和假设。

The Trumps used Robert Von Ancken, a favorite of New York City’s big real estate families. Over a 45-year career, Mr. Von Ancken has appraised many of the city’s landmarks, including Rockefeller Center, the World Trade Center, the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building. Donald Trump recruited him after Fred Trump Jr. died and the family needed friendly appraisals to help shield the estate from taxes.

特朗普家族找的是罗伯特·冯·安肯(Robert Von Ancken)，他是纽约市大房地产家族最爱用的估价师。在45年的职业生涯中，冯·安肯评价过这座城市的许多标志性建筑，包括洛克菲勒中心(Rockefeller Center)、世界贸易中心(World Trade Center)、克莱斯勒大厦(Chrysler Building)和帝国大厦。小弗雷德·特朗普去世后，唐纳德·特朗普聘用了他，特朗普家族需要友好的估价，以保护遗产不受税收影响。

Mr. Von Ancken appraised the 25 apartment complexes and other properties in the Trumps’ GRATs and concluded that their total value was $93.9 million, tax records show.

据税务记录显示，冯·安肯对老特朗普夫妇的GRAT中的25栋公寓大楼和其他房产进行了评估，得出的结论是，这些房产的总价值为9390万美元。

To assess the accuracy of those valuations, The Times examined the prices paid for comparable apartment buildings that sold within a year of Mr. Von Ancken’s appraisals. A pattern quickly emerged. Again and again, buildings in the same neighborhood as Trump buildings sold for two to four times as much per square foot as Mr. Von Ancken’s appraisals, even when the buildings were decades older, had fewer amenities and smaller apartments, and were deemed less valuable by city property tax appraisers.

为了判别这些估值的准确性，时报查阅了冯·安肯给出这个估值前后一年的时间里出售的同类公寓大楼的价格。一种模式很快显示出来。在特朗普家族拥有的大楼所在的街区，每平方英尺的售价每每是冯·安肯估价的两到四倍，就连那些建筑年代更久、设施更少、公寓更小，而且被纽约市财产税估价师认为价值更低的大楼也是如此。

Mr. Von Ancken valued Argyle Hall, a six-story brick Trump building in Brooklyn, at $9.04 per square foot. Six blocks away, another six-story brick building, two decades older, had sold a few months earlier for nearly $30 per square foot. He valued Belcrest Hall, a Trump building in Queens, at $8.57 per square foot. A few blocks away, another six-story brick building, four decades older with apartments a third smaller, sold for $25.18 per square foot.

冯·安肯对特朗家族普位于布鲁克林的一栋六层砖砌建筑阿盖尔厅(Argyle Hall)的估价是每平方英尺9.04美元。在六个街区之外，有一栋六层砖砌建筑，年代比特朗普家族的建筑早20年，几个月前以每平方英尺近30美元的价格卖出。冯·安肯对特朗普家族位于皇后区的建筑贝尓科瑞斯特厅(Belcrest Hall)的估价为每平方英尺8.57美元。几个街区之外，另一栋六层砖砌建筑比特朗普家族的建筑老40年、其公寓比特朗普家族的公寓小三分之一，最后以每平方英尺25.18美元的价格卖出。

The pattern persisted with Fred Trump’s higher-end buildings. Mr. Von Ancken appraised Lawrence Towers, a Trump building in Brooklyn with spacious balcony apartments, at $24.54 per square foot. A few months earlier, an apartment building abutting car repair shops a mile away, with units 20 percent smaller, had sold for $48.23 per square foot.

这个模式也延续到弗雷德·特朗普更高端的建筑上。冯·安肯对劳伦斯大厦(Lawrence Towers)的估价为每平方英尺24.54美元，该大厦位于布鲁克林，其公寓有宽敞的阳台。在冯·安肯给出上述估价的几个月前，一英里外有一栋与汽车修理店相邻的公寓大楼，其公寓比劳伦斯大厦的公寓小20%，曾以每平方英尺48.23美元的价格卖出。

The Times found even starker discrepancies when comparing the GRAT appraisals against appraisals commissioned by the Trumps when they had an incentive to show the highest possible valuations.

时报把特朗普家族的GRAT中用的财产估价，与特朗普家族有意显示最高可能价值时让人做的估价相比较，结果发现了更加明显的不一致。

Such was the case with Patio Gardens, a complex of nearly 500 apartments in Brooklyn.

天井花园(Patio Gardens)就是这样一个例子，这是一处位于布鲁克林的建筑群，有近500个公寓。

Of all Fred Trump’s properties, Patio Gardens was one of the least profitable, which may be why he decided to use it as a tax deduction. In 1992, he donated Patio Gardens to the National Kidney Foundation of New York/New Jersey, one of the largest charitable donations he ever made. The greater the value of Patio Gardens, the bigger his deduction. The appraisal cited in Fred Trump’s 1992 tax return valued Patio Gardens at $34 million, or $61.90 a square foot.

在弗雷德·特朗普所有的房地产中，天井花园是最不赚钱的楼盘之一，这也许是他决定将其用来做税收减免的原因。1992年，他将天井花园捐赠给了国家肾脏基金会纽约/新泽西分会，这是他所做过的最大慈善捐赠之一。天井花园的估价越高，他可以减免的课税就越多。弗雷德·特朗普在1992年的报税表中对天井花园的估价是3400万美元，合每平方英尺61.90美元。

By contrast, Mr. Von Ancken’s GRAT appraisals found that the crown jewels of Fred Trump’s empire, Beach Haven and Shore Haven, with five times as many apartments as Patio Gardens, were together worth just $23 million, or $11.01 per square foot.

相比冯·安肯为GRAT做的估价，把弗雷德·特朗普帝国的皇冠瑰宝“海滩海湾公寓”和“海岸海湾公寓”加在一起的价值定为区区2300万美元，合每平方英尺11.01美元，这两处房地产的公寓数量是天井花园的五倍。

In an interview, Mr. Von Ancken said that because neither he nor The Times had the working papers that described how he arrived at his valuations, there was simply no way to evaluate the methodologies behind his numbers. “There would be explanations within the appraisals to justify all the values,” he said, adding, “Basically, when we prepare these things, we feel that these are going to be presented to the Internal Revenue Service for their review, and they better be right.”

在一次采访中，冯·安肯说，因为他和时报手中都没有那些描述他是如何做出估值的工作文本，所以根本无法评判他得出那些数字所用的方法。“在估价材料中会有解释来说明所有估价的正当性，”他说，并补充说，“基本上，当我们准备这些东西时，我们觉得这些东西会提交给美国国税局审阅，所以它们应该是正确的。”

Of all the GRAT appraisals Mr. Von Ancken did for the Trumps, the most startling was for 886 rental apartments in two buildings at Trump Village, a complex in Coney Island. Mr. Von Ancken claimed that they were worth less than nothing — negative $5.9 million, to be exact. These were the same 886 units that city tax assessors valued that same year at $38.1 million, and that a bank would value at $106.6 million in 2004.

在冯·安肯为特朗普夫妇做的所有GRAT估价中，最让人震惊的的是他对位于科尼岛的特朗普村(Trump Village)有886套出租公寓的两栋大楼的估值。冯·安肯声称它们的价值比零还低——确切地��，是负590万美元。同一年，同样是这886套公寓，市税务评估人员对其估价是3810万美元，而一家银行在2004年对其估价是1.066亿美元。

It appears Mr. Von Ancken arrived at his negative valuation by departing from the methodology that he has repeatedly testified is most appropriate for properties like Trump Village, where past years’ profits are a poor gauge of future value.

冯·安肯曾反复作证说，他使用了最适宜的方法，来为特朗普村这种过去几年的利润不能很好衡量未来价值的房产估值，他得出的负价值结论显然偏离了自己的这种说法。

In 1992, the Trumps had removed the two Trump Village buildings from an affordable housing program so they could raise rents and increase their profits. But doing so cost them a property tax exemption, which temporarily put the buildings in the red. The methodology described by Mr. Von Ancken would have disregarded this blip into the red and valued the buildings based on the higher rents the Trumps would be charging. Mr. Von Ancken, however, appears to have based his valuation on the blip, producing an appraisal that, taken at face value, meant Fred Trump would have had to pay someone millions of dollars to take the property off his hands.

1992年，特朗普家族将特朗普村的两栋楼从一个经济适用房项目中抽了出来，这样他们就可以提高租金，增加它们产生的利润。但这样做也让特朗普家人失去了一项房产税减免，使得这些建筑短暂处于亏损状态。冯·安肯所描述的方法本该忽略这个暂时的亏损，并根据特朗普家族未来能收取到的更高租金来评估这些建筑的价值。然而，冯·安肯看来用了这个短暂的亏损来得出自己的估价，他给出的估价从表面上看意味着，弗雷德·特朗普需要向他人支付数百万美元，才能甩掉这处房产。

Mr. Von Ancken told The Times that he did not recall which appraisal method he used on the two Trump Village buildings. “I can only say that we value the properties based on market information, and based on the expected income and expenses of the building and what they would sell for,” he said. As for the enormous gaps between his valuation and the 1995 city property tax appraisal and the 2004 bank valuation, he argued that such comparisons were pointless. “I can’t say what happened afterwards,” he said. “Maybe they increased the income tremendously.”

冯·安肯对时报说，他不记得他对特朗普村的两栋建筑用了哪种评估方法。“我只能说，我们是基于市场信息、基于建筑的预期收入和支出，以及它们的可能售价来评估这些房产的，”他说。至于他的估价与1995年的市财产税估价和2004年的银行估价之间的巨大差距问题，他辩称，这种比较毫无意义。“我不能说后来发生的事情，”他说。“也许他们极大地增加了收入。”

THE MINORITY OWNER

Armed with Mr. Von Ancken’s $93.9 million appraisal, the Trumps focused on slashing even this valuation by changing the ownership structure of Fred Trump’s empire.

有了冯·安肯作出的9390万美元估值，特朗普家族又一心通过更改弗雷德·特朗普商业帝国的持有人结构，再度削减这个估值。

The I.R.S. has long accepted the idea that ownership with control is more valuable than ownership without control. Someone with a controlling interest in a building can decide if and when the building is sold, how it is marketed and what price to accept. However, since someone who owns, say, 10 percent of a $100 million building lacks control over any of those decisions, the I.R.S. will let him claim that his stake should be taxed as if it were worth only $7 million or $8 million.

国税局素来接受一个观点，即控股所有权比非控股所有权更有价值。某人对一幢楼拥有控股权益就能决定这幢楼是否出售、何时出售、怎样营销、什么价格可以接受。然而假设某人持有价值1亿美元大楼的10%股权，对上述决定没什么控制权，那么国税局会允许他申请对所持股份仅按700万或800万美元的价值征税。

But Fred Trump had exercised total control over his empire for more than seven decades. With rare exceptions, he owned 100 percent of his buildings. So the Trumps set out to create the fiction that Fred Trump was a minority owner. All it took was splitting the ownership structure of his empire. Fred and Mary Trump each ended up with 49.8 percent of the corporate entities that owned his buildings. The other 0.4 percent was split among their four children.

但弗雷德·特朗普在七十多年里对他的帝国行使全面控制。除了极少例外，他百分之百地持有名下物业。于是特朗普家族动手制造假象,表明弗雷德·特朗普是少数股份持有人。方法无非是分拆他商业帝国的所有人结构。最后，对拥有他房产的那些公司实体，弗雷德和玛丽·特朗普夫妇各持49.8%的股份。剩下的0.4%由四个子女分别持有。

Splitting ownership into minority interests is a widely used method of tax avoidance. There is one circumstance, however, where it has at times been found to be illegal. It involves what is known in tax law as the step transaction doctrine — where it can be shown that the corporate restructuring was part of a rapid sequence of seemingly separate maneuvers actually conceived and executed to dodge taxes. A key issue, according to tax experts, is timing — in the Trumps’ case, whether they split up Fred Trump’s empire just before they set up the GRATs.

把所有权分拆为少数股份权益是一种广泛运用的避税手段。不过有一种情况，有时会让这个手段变为非法。它涉及税法中所称的步骤交易原则——为避税目的而构思并执行的一系列看似不相干的快速操作，公司重组是其中的一部分。税务专家介绍，这种情况里的关键问题是时机——就特朗普家族的案例来说，就在于他们是否恰好在成立GRAT之前分拆了弗雷德·特朗普的帝国。

In all, the Trumps broke up 12 corporate entities to create the appearance of minority ownership. The Times could not determine when five of the 12 companies were divided. But records reveal that the other seven were split up just before the GRATs were established.

特朗普家族一共分拆了12家公司实体来造成少数股份持有的表象。《纽约时报》未能确认其中五家是何时分拆。但记录显示，另外七家公司恰好在成立GRAT之前分拆。

The pattern was clear. For decades, the companies had been owned solely by Fred Trump, each operating a different apartment complex or shopping center. In September 1995, the Trumps formed seven new limited liability companies. Between Oct. 31 and Nov. 8, they transferred the deeds to the seven properties into their respective L.L.C.’s. On Nov. 21, they recorded six of the deed transfers in public property records. (The seventh was recorded on Nov. 24.) And on Nov. 22, 49.8 percent of the shares in these seven L.L.C.’s was transferred into Fred Trump’s GRAT and 49.8 percent into Mary Trump’s GRAT.

操作模式很清晰。几十年来，这些公司都由弗雷德·特朗普独自拥有，每家公司经营一处公寓楼或购物中心。在1995年9月，特朗普家族成立了七家新的有限责任公司。10月31日至11月8日，他们把七处物业的房契过户到相应的七家有限责任公司。11月21日，他们把其中六起房契过户录入了公开产权记录。（第七份房契的过户在11月24日录入。）在11月22日，这七家有限责任公司49.8%的股份转入了弗雷德·特朗普的GRAT，49.8%的股份转入了玛丽·特朗普的GRAT。

That enabled the Trumps to slash Mr. Von Ancken’s valuation in a way that was legally dubious. They claimed that Fred and Mary Trump’s status as minority owners, plus the fact that a building couldn’t be sold as easily as a share of stock, entitled them to lop 45 percent off Mr. Von Ancken’s $93.9 million valuation. This claim, combined with $18.3 million more in standard deductions, completed the alchemy of turning real estate that would soon be valued at nearly $900 million into $41.4 million.

这使得特朗普家族用法律上可疑的做法，削减了冯·安肯作出的资产估值。他们声称弗雷德和玛丽·特朗普只是少数股权持有人，再加上房产不能像股份那样轻易出售这个事实，使他们把冯·安肯的9390万美元估值又砍掉了45%。这一主张外加超过1830万美元的标准扣除额，神奇地把不久后即将价值近9亿美元的房产变成4140万美元估值。

According to tax experts, claiming a 45 percent discount was questionable even back then, and far higher than the 20 to 30 percent discount the I.R.S. would allow today.

税务专家称，即使在当年，要求45%的应税额折扣也是存疑的，这也比现在国税局能够容许的20-30%的折扣高多了。

As it happened, the Trumps’ GRATs did not completely elude I.R.S. scrutiny. Documents obtained by The Times reveal that the I.R.S. audited Fred Trump’s 1995 gift tax return and concluded that Fred Trump and his wife had significantly undervalued the assets being transferred through their GRATs.

事实上，特朗普家族的GRAT也未能完全躲过国税局的审查。时报获得的文件显示，国税局审计了弗雷德·特朗普1995年的赠与税申报表，得出的结论是弗雷德·特朗普及其妻子严重估低了通过他们的GRAT转移的财产。

The I.R.S. determined that the Trumps’ assets were worth $57.1 million, 38 percent more than the couple had claimed. From the perspective of an I.R.S. auditor, pulling in nearly $5 million in additional revenue could be considered a good day’s work. For the Trumps, getting the I.R.S. to agree that Fred Trump’s properties were worth only $57.1 million was a triumph.

国税局判定，特朗普夫妇的财产价值5710万美元，比他们申报的高出38%。从国税局审计员的角度看，获得近500万美元的额外收入算得上收成不错的一天。而从特朗普家族的角度，让国税局承认弗雷德·特朗普的物业只值5710万美元则是重大胜利。

“All estate matters were handled by licensed attorneys, licensed C.P.A.s and licensed real estate appraisers who followed all laws and rules strictly,” Mr. Harder, the president’s lawyer, said in his statement.

“一切房地产事务均由严格遵守法律法规的持证律师、持证注册会计师和持证房地产估价师办理，“总统的律师哈德在其声明中说。

In the end, the transfer of the Trump empire cost Fred and Mary Trump $20.5 million in gift taxes and their children $21 million in annuity payments. That is hundreds of millions of dollars less than they would have paid based on the empire’s market value, The Times found.

最终，特朗普商业帝国的移交使弗雷德和玛丽·特朗普付出2050万美元的赠与税，他们的子女付出2100万美元年金收入所得税。时报发现，这比依其市值他们应缴的税款少了几亿美元。

Better still for the Trump children, they did not have to pay out a penny of their own. They simply used their father’s empire as collateral to secure a line of credit from M&T Bank. They used the line of credit to make the $21 million in annuity payments, then used the revenue from their father’s empire to repay the money they had borrowed.

对弗雷德·特朗普的子女而言，更妙的是，他们自己一分钱都不用掏。他们直接以父亲的资产做抵押，从M&T银行获得信贷额度。他们用这一信贷额度支付了2100万美元的年金收益所得税，然后再用父亲产业的收入还上他们借的钱。

On the day the Trump children finally took ownership of Fred Trump’s empire, Donald Trump’s net worth instantly increased by many tens of millions of dollars. And from then on, the profits from his father’s empire would flow directly to him and his siblings. The next year, 1998, Donald Trump’s share amounted to today’s equivalent of $9.6 million, The Times found.

到子女们最终拥有了弗雷德·特朗普商业帝国的那天，唐纳德·特朗普的净资产立刻增长了数千万美元。而且从那时起，父亲产业所获的利润就直接流向他和兄弟姐妹。时报发现，第二年，即1998年，唐纳德·特朗普从中的分成已相当于今天的960万美元。

This sudden influx of wealth came only weeks after he had published “The Art of the Comeback.”

这笔突如其来的财富，是他在出版了《东山再起》(The Art of the Comeback)一书仅数周之后收到的。

“I learned a lot about myself during these hard times,” he wrote. “I learned about handling pressure. I was able to home in, buckle down, get back to the basics, and make things work. I worked much harder, I focused, and I got myself out of a box.”

“在这些艰难时日，我对自己了解了很多，”他写道。“我学会了应对压力。我能够全神贯注、放开手脚，做回最基本的业务，让事情行之有效。我工作得更刻苦了，我很专注，我把自己从条条框框里解放了出来。”

Over 244 pages he did not mention that he was being handed nearly 25 percent of his father’s empire.

全书244页里，他没提过自己正要得到父亲商业帝国的近四分之一。

REMNANTS OF EMPIRE

During Fred Trump’s final years, dementia stole most of his memories. When family visited, there was one name he could reliably put to a face.

在弗雷德·特朗普生命的最后几年，失智症夺走了他的大部分记忆。不过，家人来看他时，他总能可靠地说出一个名字。

Donald.

唐纳德。

On June 7, 1999, Fred Trump was admitted to Long Island Jewish Medical Center, not far from the house in Jamaica Estates, for treatment of pneumonia. He died there on June 25, at the age of 93.

1999年6月7日，弗雷德·特朗普因肺炎被送进长岛犹太医疗中心，这家医院离他在牙买加庄园的家不远。他于6月25日在医院去世，享年93岁。

Fifteen months later, Fred Trump’s executors — Donald, Maryanne and Robert — filed his estate tax return. The return, obtained by The Times, vividly illustrates the effectiveness of the tax strategies devised by the Trumps in the early 1990s.

15个月后，弗雷德·特朗普的遗嘱执行人——唐纳德、玛丽安和罗伯特——提交了父亲的遗产税报税表。时报得到的申报表生动地说明了特朗普家族在20世纪90年代初制定的避税收策略的有效性。

Fred Trump, one of the most prolific New York developers of his time, owned just five apartment complexes, two small strip malls and a scattering of co-ops in the city upon his death. The man who paid himself $50 million in 1990 died with just $1.9 million in the bank. He owned not a single stock, bond or Treasury bill. According to his estate tax return, his most valuable asset was a $10.3 million I.O.U. from Donald Trump, money his son appears to have borrowed the year before Fred Trump died.

弗雷德·特朗普是他那个时代最多产的纽约开发商之一，而在他去世的时候，他在纽约仅拥有五片公寓楼盘、两处小型购物中心和零星的合作公寓。这位在1990年给自己开过5000万美元年薪的人，死的时候银行里只有190万美元的存款。他不持有任何股票、债券或国库券。根据他的遗产税报税表，他最值钱的资产是唐纳德·特朗普开给他的一张1030万美元的欠条，这是儿子在弗雷德去世前的那年向父亲借的钱。

The bulk of Fred Trump’s empire was nowhere to be found on his estate tax return. And yet Donald Trump and his siblings were not done. Recycling the legally dubious techniques they had mastered with the GRATs, they dodged tens of millions of dollars in estate taxes on the remnants of empire that Fred Trump still owned when he died, The Times found.

弗雷德·特朗普商业帝国的大部分在他的遗产税报税表上不见了。不过，唐纳德·特朗普及其兄弟姐妹们并没有就此罢休。时报发现，他们再次把他们设立GRAT时掌握的法律上可疑的技术用在了弗雷德·特朗普去世时仍拥有的商业帝国的残余部分，逃避了数千万美元的遗产税。

As with the GRATs, they obtained appraisals from Mr. Von Ancken that grossly understated the actual market value of those remnants. And as with the GRATs, they aggressively discounted Mr. Von Ancken’s appraisals. The result: They claimed that the five apartment complexes and two strip malls were worth $15 million. In 2004, records show, bankers would put a value of $176.2 million on the exact same properties.

与设立GRAT时一样，他们从冯·安肯那里得到了对那些残余部分的大大地低于实际市场价值的估价。也与设立GRAT时一样，他们对冯·安肯的估价大打折扣。结果是：他们声称余下的五片公寓楼盘和二个购物中心只值1500万美元。记录显示，2004年，银行家们对同是这些房地产的估价为1.762亿美元。

The most improbable of these valuations was for Tysens Park Apartments, a complex of eight buildings with 1,019 units on Staten Island. On the portion of the estate tax return where they were required to list Tysens Park’s value, the Trumps simply left a blank space and claimed they owed no estate taxes on it at all.

这些估值中最荒唐的是泰森斯公园公寓(Tysens Park Apartments)，该公寓楼盘由八栋大楼组成，位于斯塔顿岛，共有1019个单元。在遗产税报税表中，特朗普家族被要求给出泰森斯公园公寓价值的地方，他们什么都没填，并声称对这处遗产根本不欠任何遗产税。

As with the Trump Village appraisal, the Trumps appear to have hidden key facts from the I.R.S. Tysens Park, like Trump Village, had operated for years under an affordable housing program that by law capped Fred Trump’s profits. This cap drastically reduced the property’s market value.

正如对特朗普村的估价那样，特朗普家族看来对国税局隐瞒了关键的事实。泰森斯公园公寓与特朗普村一样，多年来曾一直作为保障性住房项目的一部分经营，这对弗雷德·特朗普能够赚取的利润有一个法律上限。上限大大降低了这片房地产的市场价值。

Except for one thing: The Trumps had removed Tysens Park from the affordable housing program the year before Fred Trump died, The Times found. When Donald Trump and his siblings filed Fred Trump’s estate tax return, there were no limits on their profits. In fact, they had already begun raising rents.

但有一个不同：时报发现，特朗普家族在弗雷德·特朗普去世的前一年，将泰森斯公园公寓从保障性住房项目中抽了出来。当唐纳德·特朗普及其兄弟姐妹们提交弗雷德·特朗普的遗产税报税表时，他们能够得到的利润已不再受限制。事实上，他们已经开始在提高房租。

As their father’s executors, Donald, Maryanne and Robert were legally responsible for the accuracy of his estate tax return. They were obligated not only to give the I.R.S. a complete accounting of the value of his estate’s assets, but also to disclose all the taxable gifts he made during his lifetime, including, for example, the $15.5 million Trump Palace gift to Donald Trump and the millions of dollars he gave his children via All County’s padded invoices.

作为父亲的遗嘱执行人，唐纳德、玛丽安和罗伯特对他的遗产税报税表的准确性负有法律责任。他们不仅有义务向国税局提交父亲房地产价值的完整汇总，也有义务向国税局披露父亲一生中给出的所有应纳税的赠与，包括比如那笔给唐纳德·特朗普的1550万美元的特朗普宫赠与，以及弗雷德·特朗普通过奥康提的加价发票送给子女们的数百万美元。

“If they knew anything was wrong they could be in violation of tax law,” Mr. Tritt, the University of Florida law professor, said. “They can’t just stick their heads in the sand.”

“如果他们知道这里面有不对之处的话，他们很可能违反了税法，”佛罗里达大学(University of Florida)法学教授特里特说。“他们不能只是回避问题。”

In addition to drastically understating the value of apartment complexes and shopping centers, Fred Trump’s estate tax return made no mention of either Trump Palace or All County.

除了大幅低估公寓楼盘和购物中心的价值外，弗雷德·特朗普的遗产税报税表也没有提特朗普宫或奥康提。

It wasn’t until after Fred Trump’s wife, Mary, died at 88 on Aug. 7, 2000, that the I.R.S. completed its audit of their combined estates. The audit concluded that their estates were worth $51.8 million, 23 percent more than Donald Trump and his siblings had claimed.

直到弗雷德·特朗普的妻子玛丽于2000年8月7日以88岁的年龄去世之后，国税局才完成了对他们两人遗产的审计工作，国税局得出的结论是，他们的遗产价值为5180万美元，比唐纳德·特朗普及其兄弟姐妹们声称的高23%。

That meant an additional $5.2 million in estate taxes. Even so, the Trumps’ tax bill was a fraction of what they would have owed had they reported the market value of what Fred and Mary Trump owned at the time of their deaths.

这意味着他们要额外缴纳520万美元的遗产税。即便如此，特朗普家族所欠的税单也只是他们可能会支付的遗产税的很小一部分，如果他们按照弗雷德和玛丽·特朗普去世时所拥有资产的市场价值如实申报的话。

Mr. Harder, the president’s lawyer, defended the tax returns filed by the Trumps. “The returns and tax positions that The Times now attacks were examined in real time by the relevant taxing authorities,” he said. “The taxing authorities requested a few minor adjustments, which were made, and then fully approved all of the tax filings. These matters have now been closed for more than a decade.”

特朗普总统的律师哈德为特朗普家人提交的纳税申报表进行了辩护。“时报现在攻击的报税表和纳税状况，已被相关税务部门实时审查过，”他说。“税务当局当时要求进行了一些小的调整，然后全部批准了所有的税务申报。这些事情已经了结十多年了。”

A GOOD TIME TO SELL

In 2003, the Trump siblings gathered at Trump Tower for one of their periodic updates on their inherited empire.

2003年，特朗普兄弟姐妹在特朗普大厦聚会，就他们继承下来的商业帝国进行一次定期的情况通报。

As always, Robert Trump drove into Manhattan with several of his lieutenants. Donald Trump appeared with Allen H. Weisselberg, who had worked for Fred Trump for two decades before becoming his son’s chief financial officer. The sisters, Maryanne Trump Barry and Elizabeth Trump Grau, were there as well.

和往常一样，罗伯特·特朗普带着他的几个副手开车来到曼哈顿。唐纳德·特朗普与艾伦·H·魏塞尔贝格(Allen H. Weisselberg)一同到场，魏塞尔贝格为弗雷德·特朗普工作了20年之后，成了唐纳德的首席财务官。姐妹俩玛丽安·特朗普·巴里和伊丽莎白·特朗普·格劳也在场。

The meeting followed the usual routine: a financial report, a rundown of operational issues and then the real business — distributing profits to each Trump. The task of handing out the checks fell to Steve Gurien, the empire’s finance chief.

会议按通常的顺序进行：财务报告，经营问题总结，然后才是实质性的事情——给每个人分配利润。分发支票的任务落到了商业帝国的财务主管史蒂夫·古瑞恩(Steve Gurien)身上。

A moment later, Donald Trump abruptly changed the course of his family’s history: He said it was a good time to sell.

片刻之后，唐纳德·特朗普突然就改变了家族的历史进程。他说，现在正是出售资产的好时机。

Fred Trump’s empire, in fact, was continuing to produce healthy profits, and selling contradicted his stated wish to keep his legacy in the family. But Donald Trump insisted that the real estate market had peaked and that the time was right, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

实际上，弗雷德·特朗普的帝国仍在继续创造稳健的盈利，而且出售资产与他公开表达过的将遗产保留在家族之内的愿望相悖。但据一位了解这次会议情况的人透露，唐纳德·特朗普坚持认为房地产市场已经见顶，时机成熟。

He was also, once again, in financial trouble. His Atlantic City casinos were veering toward another bankruptcy. His creditors would soon threaten to oust him unless he committed to invest $55 million of his own money.

当时也是他再度陷入财务困境之际。他的大西洋城赌场又一次滑向破产。他的债权人很快就会威胁要他出局，除非他答应再投入5500万美元他本人的资金。

Yet if Donald Trump’s sudden push to sell stunned the room, it met with no apparent resistance from his siblings. He directed his brother to solicit private bids, saying he wanted the sale handled quickly and quietly. Donald Trump’s signature skill — drumming up publicity for the Trump brand — would sit this one out.

不过，如果唐纳德·特朗普突然提出出售资产令在场的所有人震惊的话，这个建议并没有遭到他兄弟姐妹的明显反对。他吩咐弟弟招揽私下的出价，说他希望迅速且悄无声息地完成这笔买卖。唐纳德·特朗普的招牌技能——为特朗普品牌大造声势——在这件事上就不用了。

Three potential bidders were given access to the finances of Fred Trump’s empire — 37 apartment complexes and several shopping centers. Ruby Schron, a major New York City landlord, quickly emerged as the favorite. In December 2003, Mr. Schron called Donald Trump and they came to an agreement; Mr. Schron paid $705.6 million for most of the empire, which included paying off the Trumps’ mortgages. A few remaining properties were sold to other buyers, bringing the total sales price to $737.9 million.

三名可能出价竞购的人得以看到了弗雷德·特朗普商业帝国的财务情况，帝国包括37片公寓楼盘和几处购物中心。纽约市的大地产商鲁比·施隆(Ruby Schron)很快成为最可能的买家。2003年12月，施隆给唐纳德·特朗普打了电话，他们达成了协议；施隆以7.056亿美元买下这个商业帝国的大部分资产，买价中包括偿还特朗普家族的抵押贷款。剩下的少量房产出售给了其他买家，帝国的总售价达到7.379亿美元。

On May 4, 2004, the Trump children spent most of the day signing away ownership of what their father had doggedly built over 70 years. The sale received little news coverage, and an article in The Staten Island Advance included the rarest of phrases: “Trump did not return a phone call seeking comment.”

2004年5月4日，特朗普家子女这天的大部分时间都花在了签字上，他们卖掉了父亲70多年锲而不舍地营造出来的帝国的所有权。这笔交易几乎没有新闻报道，《斯塔顿岛先锋报》(The Staten Island Advance)上的一篇文章里有句最少见的话：“特朗普没有回复要求置评的电话。”

Even more extraordinary was this unreported fact: The banks financing Mr. Schron’s purchase valued Fred Trump’s empire at nearly $1 billion. In other words, Donald Trump, master dealmaker, sold his father’s empire for hundreds of millions less than it was worth.

更不寻常的是一个未曾报道过的事实：为施隆的收购提供融资的银行对弗雷德·特朗普的商业帝国估价接近10亿美元。换言之，唐纳德·特朗普这个做交易的高手，卖父亲的资产得到的钱比资产的所值少了好几个亿。

Within a year of the sale, Mr. Trump spent $149 million in cash on a rapid series of transactions that bolstered his billionaire bona fides. In June 2004 he agreed to pay $73 million to buy out his partner in the planned Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago. (“I’m just buying it with my own cash,” he told reporters.) He paid $55 million in cash to make peace with his casino creditors. Then he put up $21 million more in cash to help finance his purchase of Maison de l’Amitié, a waterfront mansion in Palm Beach, Fla., that he later sold to a Russian oligarch.

在这笔交易完成后的一年内，特朗普就花掉了1.49亿美元的现金，快速地进行了一连串的交易，增强了他的亿万富翁名声。2004年6月，他同意以7300万美元买断计划在芝加哥建设的特朗普国际酒店大厦(Trump International Hotel & Tower)的合伙人股份。（“我只是在用自己的现金来买，”他告诉记者。）他付了5500万美元的现金与他赌场的债权人言归于好。然后他又拿出2100万美元的更多现金，为自己购买佛罗里达棕榈滩的海滨豪宅友谊宅邸(Maison de l’Amitié)助一臂之力，他后来把这个豪宅卖给了一位俄罗斯寡头。

*****

*****

The first season of “The Apprentice” was broadcast in 2004, just as Donald Trump was wrapping up the sale of his father’s empire. The show’s opening montage — quick cuts of a glittering Trump casino, then Trump Tower, then a Trump helicopter mid-flight, then a limousine depositing the man himself at the steps of his jet, all set to the song “For the Love of Money” — is a reminder that the story of Donald Trump is fundamentally a story of money.

电视真人秀《学徒》的第一季在2004年开播，那正是唐纳德·特朗普在完成父亲资产出售的时候。节目的开场是一连串镜头快速剪切——金碧辉煌的特朗普赌场、特朗普大厦、一架飞行中的特朗普直升机、一辆豪华轿车把他本人送到他的喷气机舷梯前，这段剪切配的曲子“因为爱钱”(For the Love of Money)提醒着人们，唐纳德·特朗普的故事本质上就是个金钱的故事。

Money is at the core of the brand Mr. Trump has so successfully sold to the world. Yet essential to that mythmaking has been keeping the truth of his money — how much of it he actually has, where and whom it came from — hidden or obscured. Across the decades, aided and abetted by less-than-aggressive journalism, Mr. Trump has made sure his financial history would be sensationalized far more than seen.

钱是特朗普如此成功地推销给全世界的品牌的核心。然而，对制造这个神话至关重要的一直都是隐瞒或模糊他的钱的真相——他实际拥有多少钱，钱是从哪里、从什么人那里来的。几十年来，在对追求真相不够积极的新闻媒体的帮助和纵容下，特朗普确保了他的财务历史被吹得远比实际情况更神乎其神。

Just this year, in a confessional essay for The Washington Post, Jonathan Greenberg, a former reporter for Forbes, described how Mr. Trump, identifying himself as John Barron, a spokesman for Donald Trump, repeatedly and flagrantly lied to get himself on the magazine’s first-ever list of wealthiest Americans in 1982. Because of Mr. Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, the public has been left to interpret contradictory glimpses of his income offered up by anonymous leaks. A few pages from one tax return, mailed to The Times in September 2016, showed that he declared a staggering loss of $916 million in 1995. A couple of pages from another return, disclosed on Rachel Maddow’s program, showed that he earned an impressive $150 million in 2005.

就在今年，《华盛顿邮报》发表的一篇满是悔意的文章里，前《福布斯》杂志记者乔纳森·格林伯格(Jonathan Greenberg)讲述了唐纳德·特朗普当年是怎样冒充他自己的发言人约翰·巴伦(John Barron)，一次次地公然说谎，最终让自己上了该杂志1982年首次发布的美国富豪榜。由于特朗普拒绝公开他的报税表，公众只能自己去解释匿名爆料提供的特朗普个人收入的自相矛盾的点滴。2016年9月寄到时报的一份报税表中的几页显示，特朗普在1995年申报了高达9.16亿美元的亏损。在主持人雷切尔·玛多(Rachel Maddow)节目中披露的另一份报税表中的几页显示，他在2005年赚了令人赞叹的1.5亿美元。

In a statement to The Times, the president’s spokeswoman, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, reiterated what Mr. Trump has always claimed about the evolution of his fortune: “The president’s father gave him an initial $1 million loan, which he paid back. President Trump used this money to build an incredibly successful company as well as net worth of over $10 billion, including owning some of the world’s greatest real estate.”

总统的发言人萨拉·赫卡比·桑德斯(Sarah Huckabee Sanders)在致时报的一份声明中重申了特朗普对其个人财富发展始终坚持的说法：“总统的父亲给了他最初的100万美元借款，他早已还清了。特朗普总统用这笔钱建立起一家无比成功的公司、以及超过100亿美元的净资产，其中包括持有若干处全世界最好的房产。”

Today, the chasm between that claim of being worth more than $10 billion and a Bloomberg estimate of $2.8 billion reflects the depth of uncertainty that remains about one of the most chronicled public figures in American history. Questions about newer money sources are rapidly accumulating because of the Russia investigation and lawsuits alleging that Mr. Trump is violating the Constitution by continuing to do business with foreign governments.

如今，自称的100亿美元身价与彭博社估计的28亿美元的身价之间的巨大落差，反映了在对这位美国历史上被报道最多的公众人物之一的了解上，仍存在着深深的不确定。由于“通俄门”调查、以及指控特朗普仍在与外国政府做生意有违宪法的诉讼，有关他的钱的更近期来源的疑问在迅速累积。

But the more than 100,000 pages of records obtained during this investigation make it possible to sweep away decades of misinformation and arrive at a clear understanding about the original source of Mr. Trump’s wealth — his father.

但此次调查得到的超过10万页的文件使我们得以澄清几十年来的误导，让人们清楚地了解了特朗普财富最初的来源——他的父亲。

Here is what can be said with certainty: Had Mr. Trump done nothing but invest the money his father gave him in an index fund that tracks the Standard & Poor’s 500, he would be worth $1.96 billion today. As for that $1 million loan, Fred Trump actually lent him at least $60.7 million, or $140 million in today’s dollars, The Times found.

下面是可以确定的事实：如果特朗普什么都不做，只是把父亲给他的钱投到一个追踪标普500指数的指数基金的话，他今天的身价将会是19.6亿美元。至于那100万美元的借款，时报发现，弗雷德·特朗普实际上至少借给了唐纳德6070万，以今天的美元计算是1.4亿。

And there is one more Fred Trump windfall coming Donald Trump’s way. Starrett City, the Brooklyn housing complex that the Trumps invested in back in the 1970s, sold this year for $905 million. Donald Trump’s share of the proceeds is expected to exceed $16 million, records show.

唐纳德·特朗普还得到了一笔来自弗雷德·特朗普的意外之财。特朗普家族在1970年代投资在布鲁克林修建的住宅项目斯塔雷特城，今年以9.05亿美元售出。记录显示，唐纳德·特朗普可从收益中分得的份额预计超过1600万美元。

It was an investment made with Fred Trump’s money and connections. But in Donald Trump’s version of his life, Starrett City is always and forever “one of the best investments I ever made.”

这是一笔用弗雷德·特朗普的钱和人脉做的投资。但是在唐纳德·特朗普讲述的他的人生故事里，斯塔雷特城一直、永远是“我做过的最好的投资之一”。