So much for paying your "fair share" eeh there Johny boy? I guess there really is one set of rules for the masses and another set of rules for the ruling class... Sen. John Kerry skips town on sails tax 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. 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Teresa Heinz, Isabel’s hailing port is listed as “Newport” on her stern Could the reason be that the Ocean State repealed its Boat Sales and Use Tax back in 1993, making the tiny state to the south a haven - like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Nassau - for tax-skirting luxury yacht owners? Cash-strapped Massachusetts still collects a 6.25 percent sales tax and an annual excise tax on yachts. 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. The senior senator’s chief of staff David Wade denied the old salt was berthing his boat out of state to avoid ponying up to the commonwealth. “The boat was designed by and purchased from a company in Rhode Island, and it’s based in Newport at the Newport Shipyard for long-term maintenance, upkeep and charter purposes, not tax reasons,” Wade told the Track. And state Department of Revenue spokesguy Bob Bliss confirmed the senator “is under no obligation to pay the commonwealth sales tax.” But back in 2006, then-gubernatorial candidate Christy Mihos took some flack for avoiding some $23,000 in Bay State sales tax and $1,320 in local excise taxes by berthing his motor yacht in Rhode Island. But Mihos paid just $475,000 for his 36-foot vessel Ashley and readily admitted that he used the boat at his West Yarmouth summer home. However, according to Bliss, if Kerry berths the Isabel in Massachusetts waters within six months of purchasing the boat, there’s a “presumption of use” and the Heinz-Kerrys would have to walk the plank and pony up to the Bay State. After six months, should the boat change its berth to, say, Nantucket, then it’s up to the state to go after them for the taxes, Bliss added. Yesterday, the Isabel, which lists Great Point LLC of Pittsburgh, Penn., as its owner, was getting a spruce-up at the Hinckley shipyard in Portsmouth, R.I. Sources say the senior senator is demanding that some warranty work be done. Fontaine, a protege of legendary sailboat designer Ted Hood, was tight-lipped about the owners of Isabel but he did confirm the boat was built in New Zealand. According to Internet reports, Kerry was seen in Whangarei last December inspecting his new high-seas plaything.
This is really one of the dumber threads I've seen in this forum recently, and that's saying something...watch out basso A CHALLENGER APPROACHES
You people crack me up.... Here let me help you out..... Kerry = Demorcratic Senator Democrats attack the rich for not paying their fair share of taxes Kerry is rich and dodged paying sales and excise taxes in his home state In other words............Democrats are hypocrits!
Aren't you a proponent of state rights? You do understand that the luxury tax you are bringing up was passed by the state of Massachusetts while the state of Rhode Island didn't pass a similar tax. That John Kerry is a US Senator and serves in a federal office. He is in no position to pass taxes in Massachusetts or Rhode Island (other than as a regular voter in MA.). That said I agree he should just pay the tax in MA if he is going to be keeping the boat there.
How typical. Guys like Kerry and Kennedy have never had to worry a day in their lives about money, healthcare and having to earn a real profit. They can't conceptualize that someone may not have what they have because they didn't work for their wealth/lifestyle. What many don't understand is that people like the Kennedy's and the Kerry's have secure tax protected trusts and dozens of lawyers and advisors to keep their hundreds of millions of dollars out of the government's hands. It the people with a few million and business owners and their employees that get affected by raising taxes. I would rather have a simplified tax code with a very high estate tax than higher taxes on income earners if given the choice.
Actually Kerry didn't grow up rich. You have though taken the position of defending the tax cuts are you now saying that the wealth like Kerry should be taxed more? If so I am with you. On that I fully agree with you but not completely for ideological reasons. I think that complex tax code we have now hampers collections, as you note above. I think that we would get more with a simpler code and if that means flatter I'm willing to live with it. As for the estate tax I admit to ideological reasons for supporting that as I don't believe it is a good thing for a society to have a largely unfettered passage of wealth down to heirs.
His mothers family "Forbes" were very wealthy and he would 'summer' on their estate and is the beneficiary to numerous family trusts. He also married into money on two occasion. The lifestyle he lives was not created through his hard work or sweat. Its based on family (inc. wife's) money which allows him to have 76 foot VIP yachts. I just don't respect a man living of his wife and family. Not enough to make decisions for my country.
You should be against it completely. Its a double taxation and wrongly burdens the family of the deceased. Why should you have to pay taxes on money that you earned AND already payed taxes on while earning it? Why is it wrong to pass down wealth down to your family if you die?
I didn't really like that to much either...but he was way better the Al "Global Warming" Gore or John "Swift Boat" Kerry
I think Bush was a fool. Not sure whats worse, the elite (i'm sooo smart) Boston senator who spends his wife's dead husbands money and family money or the 'alleged' Texan whose handlers got him to jump into some pretty stupid scenarios and tries to seem stupid. Bush did leverage his family connections but made some money on the Texas Rangers sale which is actually earning a dollar. Any credit was taken away with his drunken spending and unnecessary Iraq war.
The estate tax is only assessed on very wealthy estates. The families inheriting that kind of money hardly qualify as financially burdened.
This is funny. OddsOn's philosophy for running government was in place for most of the 2000s, and America went into the ****hole. And yet, somehow OddsOn believes that it is his conservative philosophy should be trusted again because it is 'common sense'. Textbook Dunning-Kruger Effect, if you ask me.
It's not double taxation unless you consider all taxes double-taxation. We tax transfers of money in this country. When you earn money, it's taxed. When you spend money, it's taxed. When you give money to someone, it's taxed. That's the entire basis of the system. An estate is no different - it's a transfer of money, and thus it gets taxed. You can't pass down money to family without being taxed when you're alive. Why should it be different when you're dead?
This is a very tired and illogical argument. You are not being taxed twice in the estate tax as you are dead. The ones paying the tax are your heirs, or more precisely your estate, which isn't you unless you apply Star Trek logic that like Ferengi you actually live on in your possessions. Anyway if you are complaining about the estate tax I don't see why you should give the Kennedys, or Theresa Heinz Kerry, a hard time since they are the products of wealth being passed on. Sorry for my continued rant but this is what I occasionally find ridiculous about the new brand of populist right wingers. They will complain about those wealthy elites yet continue to support policies that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy elites.
