Trump Accused Of Burying Ex Ivana Trump At N.J. Golf Course As Tax Writeoff

Donald Trump and his family organization are being accused of reaching a new low after making a peculiar choice for a final resting place for his ex-wife Ivana Trump, who recently died at 73 after sustaining a fall in her Manhattan apartment. The theory was first posted online by Dartmouth sociologist Brooke Harrington.

Ivana was buried at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey after her funeral ceremony in Manhattan. Harrington shared a photo of her grave, which she described as a “sad little plot of dirt,” alongside a screenshot of New Jersey’s state tax laws surrounding cemeteries and funerals.

According to a section highlighted by Harrington, properties designated as a cemetery by the state could be exempt from “Real Property Taxes on lands dedicated to cemetery purposes; Income Taxes; Sales and Use Taxes,” which obviously would be a massive reduction of tax payments on this golf course.

Harrington also claimed that the tax code had no minimum number of buried corpses to qualify the property, adding “looks like one corpse will suffice to make at least three forms of tax vanish.”

Trump has toyed with the idea of making this course into a graveyard in the past. According to NPR, he considered building his own mausoleum on the property and even proposed adding as many as 1,000 graves to the site back in 2012, but locals objected to the plan. Another plan for around 300 commercial plots to be sold to well-off club members was also drafted and abandoned back in 2015.

According to other intricacies of the code, the 1.5-acre plot is the only area covered by tax-exempt status, not the entire club. Trump also had this area declared as a farm previously for tax benefits because parts of it were used to make mulch for gardening and may have held goats at one point.

While it’s not clear whether this burial was truly just for tax purposes, Trump has certainly been known for some shady business practices in the past.