Nope. You clearly did not read it.
Let me know if there are any big words you don't understand:
It’s the patch of 16 lots that Trump never tried to sell that has become a major focus of James’ investigation. Trump spent years fighting for approval to build homes on the parcel, which was considered at risk of another landslide. In the meantime, he got permission to use the area as his golf course’s driving range and putting green.
It would likely take years, and millions of dollars, to make the land safe enough to be approved for home development. So, Trump came up with a different way to cash in on his troubled piece of land: He used it to cut his tax bill. In 2014, he struck a deal with a local land conservancy. Trump donated a conservation easement over the tract, promising to keep it as green space instead of trying to turn it into homes. In exchange, he could deduct the value of the gift—which he had appraised at $25 million—on his taxes. Another perk: He got to keep using the property as a driving range for his paying customers. A good deal, even if the optics made his lawyer nervous.
“Some could argue that as long as he is operating the golf course, he would continue to keep the driving range,” Trump attorney Sheri Dillon wrote at the time, in an internal email obtained by James. “Effectively, the US taxpayers are paying him to do exactly what he would already do anyway.”
The New York attorney general, meanwhile, is taking aim at a different aspect of the deal: how Trump arrived at $25 million for the value of his “gift.” The higher the value of the land Trump agreed not to develop, the more he could deduct on his taxes. According to James, the Trump Organization and the appraisers it hired used a number of tactics to inflate their estimate, including downplaying the time and cost required to make the lots safe and lowballing the value of Trump keeping the driving range.
According to court filings, Trump submitted the questionable appraisal to the IRS and got more than $5 million in federal tax benefits between 2014 and 2018, thanks to the conservation easement at Trump Los Angeles and a similar agreement Trump made at a property he owns in New York state.
“Trump,” one appraiser wrote to another, according to the court filings, “is fighting for every $1.”