A golden Donald Trump statue popped up at Trump National Doral, the president’s golf resort in Miami, last month.
PGA TOUR (Photo by Ben Jared/PGA TOUR via Getty Images)
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed a document Tuesday giving Donald Trump, his two eldest sons and his company broad immunity for potential tax disputes with the federal government. It’s the clearest way that the president is personally benefitting from his settlement with the Internal Revenue Service, which he sued days after taking office for failing to prevent the release of his personal tax returns.
The settlement lands at a convenient moment. Donald Trump earned an estimated $1.4 billion from crypto and licensing ventures in 2025, as he turned his first year back in the White House into the most lucrative year of his life. If the president received an extension for his 2025 return, his preparers may be sorting through exactly how to present this year’s welter of income right now. Trump has never hidden the animating principle. When Hillary Clinton accused him of paying no taxes in the 2016 debates, he replied: “That makes me smart.” Also much richer. If Trump is able to conjure up theories to avoid taxes for his 2025 income, he could save more than a half-billion dollars, according to Forbes estimates.
The conflict-of-interest underpinning all of this is so obvious that even Trump has acknowledged it. “I’m the one that makes the decision, right?” he mused in the Oval Office in October. “You know, that decision would have to go across my desk. And it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.” Trump first suggested he would send whatever judgement he received to charity, before settling on a more creative approach. The government would not pay Trump. Instead, Trump would get a pass enabling him to pay less to the government. The move harkens the old cliché—a penny saved is a penny earned—with the same result: more money in Trump’s pocket.
Asked about all this, the White House referred questions to the Trump Organization. The president’s business did not dispute the estimates but opted to issue a lengthy statement attacking the IRS that said, in part, “This settlement seeks to provide meaningful accountability for the IRS’s prolonged and systemic failure to safeguard sensitive taxpayer data.”
Like the settlement itself, Trump’s massive earnings are a product of the presidency. Heading into the 2024 election, Trump announced a new crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, which sold tokens to anyone interested in buying. The tokens offered no financial interest in World Liberty, which helps explain why so few people noticed initially. But after Trump won the election, sales exploded. The economics of the deal were tailored to funnel vast sums of cash to the Trump family. After the first $15 million of sales, 75% of the proceeds went to the Trump family—with 70% of that flowing to the president-elect. More than $50 million went into this machine by the end of 2024, before ramping up in the new year.
Tokens were not the only thing Trump was selling. As Forbes first reported, he also struck a secret deal to offload a chunk of equity in World Liberty Financial in January 2025. The Wall Street Journal later identified the purchaser of that stake, an entity backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, which promised $500 million in the deal. The agreement reportedly excluded the proceeds from token sales, which appeared to be World Liberty’s principal business at the time. World Liberty went on to launch a stablecoin that another entity connected to Sheikh Tahnoon propped up with a multibillion-dollar investment. Trump walked away from the sale with an estimated $375 million in pre-tax earnings. That windfall would theoretically trigger a roughly $140 million federal tax bill.
Also in January 2025, just as Trump was about to take office, he launched a memecoin. That token explicitly warned investors that it was “not intended to be … an investment opportunity.” But lots of people wanted it anyway, sparking a frenzy that sent an estimated $315 million in transaction fees to newly elected president of the United States. Those fees would have theoretically created another $115 million tax obligation.
With his crypto-enrichment apparatus in place, Trump assumed the presidency. Cash came rolling in. In April, a high-frequency trading firm based in the United Arab Emirates purchased $25 million of World Liberty tokens. Two months later, an opaque entity named Aqua1 Foundation—also based in the UAE—bought another $100 million. Then a small healthcare company named Alt5 Sigma pivoted to crypto, announcing a plan to amass a pile of World Liberty tokens for more than $700 million. Over the course of the year, World Liberty sold an estimated $1.3 billion of tokens in all. Seventy-five percent of that went to the Trump family, with the president personally hauling in an estimated $700 million, triggering another $260 million in taxes.
His sons, meanwhile, jetted around the world signing new licensing and management deals. Such agreements brought in an estimated $50 million in 2024. If 2025 proved to be similarly lucrative, that could have triggered another $15 or $20 million in taxes. Another couple million in obligations probably would have come from various Trump-branded tchotchkes—including watches, guitars, books and a gilded cell phone sporting, among other features, an American flag with 11 stripes.
Trump also may have faced significant tax liabilities from years preceding 2025, thanks to his habit of employing unusually aggressive accounting. He has long fretted over his investment in Chicago, which he reportedly declared “worthless” to receive tax benefits. While talking up the rest of his portfolio, Trump repeatedly suggested Forbes value that property at zero. The New York Times reported that the maneuver led to a fight with the IRS that left a potential tax bill of more than $100 million hanging over the president. If that dispute wasn’t resolved before Tuesday, the new settlement would seemingly put it to bed.
Trump’s tax maneuvers have attracted the attention of the authorities in other instances, too. The Trump Organization was convicted in 2022 of felonies including tax fraud and conspiracy. That scheme had to do with various benefits handed to executives in a way that skirted taxes. The most amazing thing about the trial was how little money was involved. Penalties assessed to the Trump Organization amounted to just $1.6 million. The crimes were small enough to be petty, big enough to be stupid.
This time, the numbers are not petty. Trump now appears to be staring at a tax liability of more than a half-billion dollars. His sons Eric and Don Jr., also given immunity via Tuesday’s agreement, are also coming off of record years that would theoretically trigger massive tax payments. A Trump Organization spokesperson said Eric Trump has no outstanding personal audits, without addressing a follow-up note about his 2025 taxes. It could take courts years to determine whether the new settlement is legal. But time can be very valuable, especially for a family like the Trumps, which is actively investing its liquidity in stocks and bonds. Assuming mediocre returns, $600 million of free money could yield an extra $240 million over five years.
Tuesday’s agreement may end up being one of the most valuable “deals” of Donald Trump’s life, not because it makes his tax liability vanish, but because it removes the biggest threat any tax cheat faces—the IRS.
