US president’s luxury resort benefits from scheme set up to help small businesses affected by economic slump

Donald Trump’s luxury hotel in Turnberry has been handed a £110,000 tax rebate by Scottish ministers as part of an emergency bailout intended to help struggling small businesses.

Figures reveal that the Trump Turnberry hotel on the coast of Ayrshire, where suites cost up to £815 a night, had its property tax cut by £109,530 as a result of the measure. That led to a 13.5% reduction in its normal annual business rates bill of £811,850.

The Scottish rebate was announced in February after hoteliers and restaurant owners complained about a rise in property taxes of up to 400% that came into force this year. The complaints were most intense in north-east Scotland, a region hit hard by a slump in oil prices.

Only available to firms in the hospitality sector, the rebate was put into effect Scotland-wide, and included companies making profits or those unaffected by the economic downturn.

The US president boasted earlier this year that Turnberry and its championship golf courses were doing “unbelievably” well because the value of sterling had fallen since the Brexit vote in June 2016.

The resort’s general manager, Ralph Porciani, told the Guardian in January he was expecting bumper profits for 2016 and 2017, with revenues likely to be up to 20% higher than the £16m Turnberry earned in 2007. Turnberry increased its golf club membership fees by 38%, to £2,500 a year, after its courses were upgraded.

“From the business we have on the books so far, the pace is telling me the Trump Turnberry will have its best year of revenue in 100 years,” Porciani said. Previously the resort had been closed for refurbishment.

Opposition MSPs and councillors said the figures revealing Trump’s windfall, obtained by the Guardian in conjunction with the Ferret website, highlighted the unfairness of the property tax system, which took no account of a business’s profitability. The rebate was not introduced to help companies that were healthy and unaffected by the downturn, they said.

Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Green party leader, said: “Trump’s brand is toxic. 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.”

Lewis Macdonald, a Labour MSP for north-east Scotland who campaigned for emergency help after the region’s economy was hit by the slump in oil prices, said: “The Turnberry case highlights the unfairness of the current system and the urgent need for reform.”

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Even though the rebellion by businesses over the scale of the rates rise was at its greatest in Aberdeenshire, Trump’s other golf resort in Scotland, north of Aberdeen, has not benefited from the rebate. Despite its 19-room boutique hotel and clubhouse restaurant, the Trump International Golf Course Scotland did not qualify because it is classed as a golf course.

Martin Ford, the councillor whose casting vote in 2008 against Trump’s original golf resort plans in Aberdeenshire forced ministers to intervene to force them through, said he believed the Turnberry resort should not have benefited.

“All policy changes have unintended consequences, and this is a bad one for the Scottish government,” Ford said. “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.”

The latest accounts for Golf Recreation Scotland, Trump’s holding company that owns the Turnberry resort, show the Trump Organization paid no other business taxes for Turnberry. It employs about 340 people but its accounting losses meant it did not have to pay the £1.7m in corporation tax for which it was liable. Trump remains the sole shareholder for Turnberry, although day to day management has passed to his son Donald Trump Jr and legal adviser Allen Weisselberg.

The Scottish government did not respond to criticisms of the Trump rebate and would not comment on whether the rates system would be reformed to prevent large and profitable firms such as Trump Turnberry from benefiting.

“Our hospitality rates relief is available to 8,500 businesses and 100,000 small business properties – half of all properties – pay no rates at all. It is for businesses to apply for rates relief and for councils to ensure those which do are eligible,” a Scottish government spokesman said.

“The Barclay review, published today, provides recommendations for further reforming the system including around golf courses, and ministers will respond to the report swiftly.”