A Democratic House member is asking Palm Beach County, Florida, to tax Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property at the rate the former president claims it is worth amid his ongoing civil fraud trial in New York.
In a letter first provided to NBC News, Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., issued the request to Dorothy Jacks, Palm Beach County's property appraiser.
Moskowitz noted New York Judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling last week saying that Trump repeatedly committed acts of fraud for years. Engoron ruled that Trump lied to banks and insurers by overvaluing and undervaluing his assets while exaggerating his net worth to billions of dollars.
Trump has raged against Engoron’s ruling, insisting that his Florida resort is worth “50 to 100 times” what prosecutors in the New York civil case have said, or “closer to $1.5 billion.”
“Between 2011 and 2021, you value the Mar-a-Lago property between $18 million and $28 million,” Moskowitz wrote in the letter to the Palm Beach County appraiser.
“Mar-a-Lago was listed as worth $490 million in financial documents given to banks,” he wrote. “If the property value of Mar-a-Lago is so much higher than it was appraised, will you be amending the property value in line with the Trump family’s belief that the property is worth well over a billion dollars?”
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Moskowitz, first elected in 2022, is a moderate Democrat who represents a district in Florida that includes parts of Palm Beach County. He is also a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
With Trump’s civil fraud trial in the national conversation, the letter is an attempt by the first-term congressman to highlight the disconnect between Trump’s claims that his property is worth far more than the value set by appraisers, as cited by the judge in his case.
