The New York Times reports:

The tax immunity agreement was more like a rescue operation than a formal legal settlement. It called for the I.R.S. to absolve Mr. Trump and his businesses of all audits they were currently facing — including a yearslong battle with the tax agency that could have cost the president more than $100 million.

That fight stemmed partly from a refund that Mr. Trump had claimed — and collected — starting in about 2010. He justified the refund by declaring huge business losses, including on his tower in Chicago.

Early in Mr. Trump’s first term in the White House, the matter was put on hold, but it came back to life before he left office.
More recently, the company had entered settlement talks with the agency, laying the groundwork for a potential resolution, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Now, it seemed, the audit would vanish.

Acting as a cheerleader for the overall plan, including the tax deal, was Mr. Epshteyn, Mr. Trump’s top outside legal adviser who has been close to the president for about a decade, both when he was in and out of office.

Mr. Epshteyn played a significant role in moving the proposals forward, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, discussing the issue with Mr. Trump and circulating drafts of the tax agreement to Trump advisers.

While the origins of the tax maneuver remain somewhat obscure, the Justice Department began to assess the proposal about a week before Judge William’s May 20 deadline, according to people familiar with the matter. One of the questions raised was whether giving the Trumps protection against I.R.S. scrutiny would run afoul of a law barring the tax agency from dropping audits at the direction of the president or his aides.

The tax proposal did not end up appearing in the initial document that declared the lawsuit resolved and described the details of the compensation fund. That document was signed by the Justice Department’s No. 3 official, Stanley Woodward Jr., who had worked with Mr. Blanche on Mr. Trump’s defense team and represented several of the president’s close aides in various investigations.

In a curious twist, the tax addendum was posted, without fanfare, on the Justice Department’s website one day after the terms of the main agreement were released. It was a murky piece of writing, full of long sentences stuffed with subordinate clauses and the Trumpian use of words in capital letters. Only Mr. Blanche, and no one from the I.R.S., signed it. [Continue reading…]