Donald Trump has built a New York City real estate empire on $885 million in tax breaks, grants and incentives that have helped him lower construction costs and sell apartments within those core properties at higher prices because of lowered taxes, according to news reports.

The value of the incentives for office buildings, hotels and luxury apartments in Manhattan was based on an examination of city tax, housing and finance records by The New York Times.

Trump has vigorously sought the breaks, the report says, and the developer has relied heavily on business and political connections — including numerous lawsuits — to obtain them

“Donald Trump is probably worse than any other developer in his relentless pursuit of every single dime of taxpayer subsidies he can get his paws on,” Alicia Glen, deputy mayor for housing and economic development for Mayor Bill de Blasio, told the Times.

The Republican nominee, however, defended obtaining the assistance, saying in an interview: “In many cases, they made the difference between building and not being able to build.

“I’ve gotten incentives in other parts of the world as well,” he said.

The Times cautions that “in seeking those subsidies, Mr. Trump is not that different from many other developers.”

However, the report notes that “the level of subsidies he has received along with his doggedness in claiming them seem at odds with his rhetoric as an outsider candidate who boasts of his single-handed success and who has denounced what he calls the pay-to-play culture of politics and a ‘rigged’ system of government.”

Here are nine New York City properties undergirding Trump’s real estate empire and the subsidies he obtained, according to the Times:

• Grand Hyatt Hotel, $359 million.
• 120-240 Riverside Blvd., $332 million.
• Trump World Tower, $120 million.
• Trump Tower, $37.5 million.
• One Central Park West, $16 million.
• Trump Plaza, $13 million.
• Trump Palace Condos, $8 million.
• 40 Wall St., $150,000.
• Trump Parc East, $49,000.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/trump-built-real-estate/2016/09/17/id/748812/