(IDEX Online) - The US Justice Department is suing Moshe Lax, a friend and former business partner of Ivanka Trump, for allegedly taking part in schemes to defraud the US government out of millions of dollars in tax liabilities on his father's estate.
The suit against the New York businessman seeks more than $60 million in unpaid tax liabilities. It alleges that Lax, his sister Zlaty Schwartz, and his late father, Chaim Lax, engaged in a series of complex "sham transactions" designed to fraudulently evade tax liability, according to the Politico website.
The government alleges the family members undertook 10 separate schemes "designed to hide the Lax family assets from the IRS and other creditors and make it appear as though the Estate was insolvent."
Although the complaint does not mention the president's daughter or accuse her of wrongdoing, Madison Avenue Diamonds, the business that she helped run for years under the name Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry, figures significantly in the government's case.
One of the 10 schemes outlined in the complaint is Lax's alleged transfer of a roughly $21 million interest in Madison Avenue Diamonds from his father's estate to a holding company for nothing in return.
There has been no response from Lax, while a firm that handles PR for Trump's brand said: "The issues in this case have nothing to do with Ivanka or the Ivanka Trump brand. These licensing arrangements were terminated by the Ivanka Trump brand in 2016, prior to Ivanka entering government service."
But the government alleges that Lax fraudulently transferred a portion of equity in Madison Avenue Diamonds at some point between 2008 and 2012. During that period, Trump remained involved with the business. At one point, Trump also had an ownership stake in Madison Avenue Diamonds, according to a deposition she gave in an unrelated case that was obtained by Politico last year.
The suit claims that that Lax's father began the schemes in the years before his death in 2008 so that his heirs could inherit his fortune without paying his unmet tax obligations, the report explains. Lax and his sister are accused of continuing the schemes with a series of elaborate transactions meant to keep the assets from their father's estate hidden from the government and other creditors.
(Image: www.politico.com)