Ivana Trump died at the age of 73
(Picture: Getty)Donald Trump’s first wife Ivana was buried at the former president’s New Jersey golf club last month, following an Upper East Side funeral service.
However, the Trump family have been accused of having ulterior motives for choosing the golf course as her final resting place.
Trump’s first wife – and mother to his three eldest children Donald Jr, Ivanka, and Eric – passed away in July aged 73, after sustaining a fall at her home in New York City’s Manhattan.
She was laid to rest at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, which is “not too far from the main clubhouse”, according to the New York Post.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Could Ivana Trump’s resting place benefit Donald Trump financially?
In documents published by ProPublica, the Trump Family Trust has been shown to have previously sought to designate a property in Hackettstown – which is about 20 miles from the golf course where Ivana is buried – as a nonprofit cemetery company.
Defining the golf course as a cemetery would grant the business a range of tax breaks.
Under New Jersey law, land used for cemetery purposes is exempt from real estate and personal property taxes, as well as sales tax, business tax, and income tax.
Cemetery property is also exempt from sale for collection of judgments, with cemetery trust funds and trust income exempt from tax and sale or seizure for collection of judgments against the company.
Does one grave qualify the golf club as a cemetery?
Ivana is the only known person to have been buried at the Trump National Golf Club, according to reports.
Brooke Harrington, a professor of sociology at Dartmouth college in New Hampshire, tweeted on Saturday that she had looked into claims that Ivana’s resting place might benefit her ex-husband’s tax planning from beyond the grave.
As a tax researcher, I was skeptical of rumors Trump buried his ex-wife in that sad little plot of dirt on his Bedminster, NJ golf course just for tax breaks.
— Brooke Harrington (@EBHarrington) July 31, 2022
So I checked the NJ tax code & folks...it's a trifecta of tax avoidance. Property, income & sales tax, all eliminated. pic.twitter.com/VDZBlDyuhQ
In a tweet, she wrote: “As a tax researcher, I was skeptical of rumors Trump buried his ex-wife in that sad little plot of dirt on his Bedminster, NJ golf course just for tax breaks.
“So I checked the NJ tax code & folks…it’s a trifecta of tax avoidance.
“Property, income & sales tax, all eliminated.”
Harrington later tweeted the full New Jersey tax code for cemetery land.
While saying she was surprised about the tax suggestions she also accused Donald Trump of burying his wife in “little more than a pauper’s grave”.
Yes. I was surprised. That's why I checked and why I posted the thread.
— Brooke Harrington (@EBHarrington) July 31, 2022
I couldn't believe her 3 kids--whom she apparently loved & who loved her--would allow their father to treat their mother like this. Burying Ivana in little more than a pauper's grave disgraces them all.
Is Donald Trump planning to extend the cemetery?
Previous reports have suggested that Ivana’s former husband has planned to build different types of cemetery operations at the Bedminster golf course.
However, speaking to Fortune magazine on Monday, a representative for the Trump Organization said that links between Ivana Trump’s gravesite and tax laws were “truly evil”.
Donald Trump has previously expressed his wishes to be buried at his New Jersey golf club, telling the New York Post in 2007 that he wanted to be laid to rest in the “beautiful land” of Bedminster.
In a filing seen by the Washington Post in 2014, his company wrote: “Mr Trump … specifically chose this property for his final resting place as it is his favorite property.”
Have there been claims of tax evasion leveled at Donald Trump before?
The former president slashed his tax bill on the New Jersey club by registering it as a farm, the Huffington Post reported in 2019.
Trump reportedly owns several goats and farms hay at the resort, which reduced his tax bill by around $88,000 a year. Under this arrangement, the golf course was taxed at just over $6 an acre in 2019, rather than $462 an acre.
The New York Times also reported that Trump used a range of strategies to avoid paying taxes on wealth inherited from his father, and the Trump Organisation has also been accused of massively misrepresenting the value of some of its assets in a bid to secure loans and tax breaks.
The Trump Organisation and its finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, were charged over an alleged 15-year-long scheme of helping executives evade taxes by giving benefits, such as rent and school fees, that were hidden from the authorities.
Lawyers for the firm and Mr Weisselberg pleaded not guilty to tax fraud.
