Trump Turnberry is one of the President’s luxury hotel and golf complexes in Scotland that got stripped of a lucrative tax break this year.
Newsweek reported that Scotland Finance Secretary Derek Mackay stripped Trump Turnberry of a lucrative tax break that this year amounted to nearly £110,000, which is about $147,000, in business rates relief.
The reason why this is happening is that the Scottish government has changed their law where businesses that have a value of more than £1.5 million (about $2 million) are not eligible for the tax break. And ironically, Trump’s property has a value of more than £1.6 million or roughly $2.1 million.
The tax break was made to help struggling businesses and to some, it seems that the change is targeted especially at the president.
Patrick Harvie, a Member of the Scottish Parliament from the Green Party said in an interview for the Sunday Herald, “It’s bad enough that he has a business presence in Scotland. It’s galling to learn that the public purse is giving him a helping hand.”
On this, Martin Ford, a counselor in Aberdeenshire, commented that “absolutely no-one would think that the best use of nearly £110,000 of public money is to use it to enhance Mr. Trump’s bank balance. He clearly doesn’t need it.”
This is not the first time that Trump has had a duel with the Scottish government. Trump previously had problems with Alex Salmond while he was First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014, during which time Salmon started making plans for a wind farm near Trump’s golf resort.
On this matter, in 2012, Trump told Salmond that the wind farm is “financial suicide” and would kill tourism.
“Your country will become a third world wasteland that global investors will avoid,” Trump said.
On the other hand, Trump plans to build a scaled-down seawall at his golf course on the west coast of Ireland, for which he got the permission from the authorities. Environmental groups and Irish residents object to this. Eamon Ryan the leader of the Green party told the Guardian, “We should be altering the golf course, not the coastline.”
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