A New York Times piece on US President Donald Trump’s taxes revealed that he earned a revenue of $73 million from abroad in his first two years of Presidency. Out of this, Trump reportedly earned $2.3 million from India through licensing deals and paid $145,400 in taxes to India, as against the mere $750 he paid in the United States of America.
“…In his first two years in the White House, his revenue from abroad totaled $73 million. And while much of that money was from his golf properties in Scotland and Ireland, some came from licensing deals in countries with authoritarian-leaning leaders or thorny geopolitics — for example, $3 million from the Philippines, $2.3 million from India and $1 million from Turkey,” the report stated.
India has been Trump’s ‘friend’ long before he became the President. India is the Trump Organisation’s biggest residential real estate market outside the US.
Trump visited India in 2014 with his son to inaugurate the company’s first project the ‘Lodha Trump Tower’ in upscale Mumbai. Since then, Trump Jr has visited India for the company’s real estate projects spanning Mumbai, Pune, Gurugram and Kolkata in partnership with domestic real estate developers and is likely the source of the $2.3 million that President Trump earned from India.
“We will make investments in India, substantial investments in India. It's a great place to invest,” Trump said in 2014. However, Trump hasn’t made direct equity investments in India, but has entered into licensing deals with real estate developers for the four projects.
In Mumbai, Trump Towers have been built in a partnership with Lodha Developers in Worli. This luxury 78-storey tower is complete and reportedly ready for possession, with prices starting from Rs 7.58 crore.
In Delhi-NCR, Trump Towers are residential twin towers rising over 600 feet being built in collaboration with M3M and Tribeca Developers. The twin towers have 258 apartments with prices starting from around Rs 5 crore. As per reports, the project is scheduled to be completed by 2023.
Trump Tower in Delhi-NCR
Trump Towers in Pune is a project done by Panchshil Developers comprising two towers of 23 stories each, which are also complete and ready for possession. The prices of flats in this property starts from around Rs 15 crore. However, according to an NYT report, most of these apartments are lying vacant, sales have slowed down and has barely seen any visits from prospective buyers.
The fourth real estate project that Trump Organisation has in India is in Kolkata, which is a single 38-storey tower being jointly developed by Unimark Group, RDB Group and Tribeca Developers. It is currently under construction and as per real estate sites, the prices start from Rs 3.5 crore and possession is being offered in December 2022.
When launched in 2017, this project reportedly saw an overwhelming response with over 50% of the units being sold in just a month.
These projects and the deals struck with these developers are the source of Trump’s revenue from India. Real estate experts told Moneycontrol that Trump would have earned around Rs 500 crore from its deal with Panchshil Realty and Lodha Group and about Rs 100 crore from the projects in Delhi-NCR and Kolkata.
Sumanth Reddy, president of the National Realtors Association of India told TNM that in such licencing deals, top real estate developers lend their brand to other developers to attract the rich homebuyers.
“They start with about 15-18% from revenue or profits for extending their brand. They will set the guidelines on the concept, define the luxury experience that homebuyers should get for buying a house under their brand and the approach to market the project. They will also have control on the overall operations of the project and the maintenance post construction because it’s the credibility of their brand that gets hit if something goes wrong,” Sumanth Reddy, president of the National Realtors Association of India told TNM.
Real estate experts say that this is revenue earned through the brand royalty, a fee that would have been paid while signing the deal, construction-linked fees and a possible cut on every property sold under the brand name.