Posted 9:39 pm Thursday, July 29, 2010
Kerry To Pay Enormous Luxury Taxes On Yacht
Call it a sails tax. Just don't call Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry on it -- although he now says he'll pay up.
Kerry bought a custom-built yacht -- but moored her in another state, to avoid paying taxes.
"Sen. John Kerry, who has repeatedly voted to raise taxes while in Congress, dodged a whopping six-figure state tax bill on his new multimillion-dollar yacht by mooring her in Newport, R.I.," the Boston Herald reports. "Isabel -- Kerry's luxe, 76-foot New Zealand-built Friendship sloop with an Edwardian-style, glossy varnished teak interior, two VIP main cabins and a pilothouse fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage -- was designed by Rhode Island boat designer Ted Fontaine. But instead of berthing the vessel in Nantucket, where the senator summers with the missus, Teresa Heinz, Isabel's hailing port is listed as 'Newport' on her stern."
He would have saved $500,000 in taxes on the boat.
"Cash-strapped Massachusetts still collects a 6.25 percent sales tax and an annual excise tax on yachts," the Herald explains. "Sources say Isabel sold for something in the neighborhood of $7 million, meaning Kerry saved approximately $437,500 in sales tax and an annual excise tax of about $70,000."
In his career in Congress, Kerry has voted in favor of literally billions of dollars in tax hikes. In his 2004 book, "A Call To Service," he has particularly harsh words for those who don't wish to overtax the wealthy.
"This (Bush) administration has made its top wartime priority the easing of the tax burden on its wealthiest citizens -- the citizens least likely to face sacrifices at home or abroad in a time of war," Kerry wrote. "The president has all but endorsed the most invidious conservative policy of our time: that cutting taxes for the people who least need help, turning budget surpluses into deficits, and piling debts on our children are all useful strategies because they will effectively paralyze our own government -- the instrument of our democracy -- by denying it the revenues to pay for progress. Using tax dollars to comfort the comfortable while starving the commonwealth has become an item of orthodoxy for the Republican Party."
"This (Bush) administration has made its top wartime priority the easing of the tax burden on its wealthiest citizens -- the citizens least likely to face sacrifices at home or abroad in a time of war," Kerry wrote. "The president has all but endorsed the most invidious conservative policy of our time: that cutting taxes for the people who least need help, turning budget surpluses into deficits, and piling debts on our children are all useful strategies because they will effectively paralyze our own government -- the instrument of our democracy -- by denying it the revenues to pay for progress. Using tax dollars to comfort the comfortable while starving the commonwealth has become an item of orthodoxy for the Republican Party."
An Associated Press analysis of his campaign promises when he ran for the presidency in 2004 pointed to big changes -- and big tax hikes to pay for them.
"From his ambitious health care proposal to his pledges to add 40,000 troops to the military and 10 million jobs to the economy, Kerry has a multitude of multi-pointed plans, and he talks optimistically about making them reality," AP noted. "Corporate tax loopholes? Gone 'in a nanosecond,' says Kerry."
There are some kinds of taxes that are relatively politically palatable to most of the public -- for example, luxury taxes.
People often mistake luxury taxes for things that would never apply to them. But the problem is the definition of luxury expands. Norway began to consider chocolate and cars as "luxuries," in search of new things to tax.
You and I are going to disagree on just what constitutes a "luxury" (and generally husbands and wives do, as well). The government will have its own opinion, also.
What no one disagrees on is that any smart person -- no matter how rich -- will dodge it whenever possible.
Perhaps it's time to scuttle this kind of tax.
"From his ambitious health care proposal to his pledges to add 40,000 troops to the military and 10 million jobs to the economy, Kerry has a multitude of multi-pointed plans, and he talks optimistically about making them reality," AP noted. "Corporate tax loopholes? Gone 'in a nanosecond,' says Kerry."
There are some kinds of taxes that are relatively politically palatable to most of the public -- for example, luxury taxes.
People often mistake luxury taxes for things that would never apply to them. But the problem is the definition of luxury expands. Norway began to consider chocolate and cars as "luxuries," in search of new things to tax.
You and I are going to disagree on just what constitutes a "luxury" (and generally husbands and wives do, as well). The government will have its own opinion, also.
What no one disagrees on is that any smart person -- no matter how rich -- will dodge it whenever possible.
Perhaps it's time to scuttle this kind of tax.
COSTLY: “Isabel,” the 76-foot yacht owned by Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, is seen undergoing repairs at the Hinckley shipyard in Portsmouth, R.I., Friday. — AP Photo By Stew Milne
