The recently published article by Jacob Weisberg on Slate goes into detail about Trump’s affair with — and hush-money payments to — Stormy Daniels. Weisberg’s article on Slate includes this revelation:
Daniels told me that agreement involved a complicated arrangement to shield the real names of the parties. She texted me an unsigned two-page document spelling out this arrangement, the title of which was “Exhibit ‘A’ to the Confidential Settlement Agreement and Release: Assignment of Copyright and Non-Disparagement Agreement.”
I believe Weisberg may have completely missed the primary point of the complicated contract. Trump’s underlying philosophy is to never give away any of his own money. And if he’s ever forced to pay someone a substaintial amount, he either claims it as a charitable deduction (and pays with OPM), or claims it as a business deduction (and gets a tax write-off to reduce his out of pocket expense).
The copyright assignment contract appears to be an attempt to turn a non-deductible personal expense (hush-money to Stormy Daniels) into a deductible business expense (purchase of copyright intellectual property). And if he did that, then in subsequent tax years, he’s also going to claim depreciation deductions on the asset (the copyright) to recoup his initial out of pocket expenses.
Someone should tip off the IRS that they might have missed something in their (never-ending) audit of Trump’s tax returns.