Posted on 05/15/2004 12:51:53 AM PDT by ambrose
Painting Sells, Kerry Makes Error on Tax
by Daniel Grant
Massachusetts Senator and presumptive Democratic party presidential nominee John Kerry is quickly becoming known nationally for his Senate record, his Vietnam War experience, his opinions on President Bush and the economy, his patrician background, and his current wife. Add to the mix his experience as an art investor or, more specifically, the sale last year of a 17th-century Dutch painting by Adam Willaerts.
The sale was part of a complicated arrangement engineered by his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, and Litchfield, Connecticut, art dealer Peter Tillou, who had jointly purchased the 1623 painting, The Arrival of Frederick and Elizabeth, Prince and Princess of the Palatinate, at Flushing, 29th April 1613. They had bought it in 1994 for $2 million. In 1996 Heinz Kerry assigned one-half of her interest in the painting to Senator Kerry, whom she had married the previous year.
Heinz Kerry and her first husband, the late Pennsylvania Senator John Heinz, had been notable art collectors with a particular interest in 17th-century Dutch still lifes. The Arrival... had been purely an investment, never hanging in her homes in Boston, Pittsburgh, or Washington, D.C. Tillou had maintained physical possession of the piece, exhibiting it at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2000 and otherwise storing it in Litchfield.
In 2003 Tillou and some associates sold the painting to a private collector for $2.7 million, sharing the $675,000 profit with Heinz Kerry. Senator Kerry's one-quarter share in The Arrival... amounted to a capital gain of $175,000, which appeared on the senator's most recent tax return as a $145,805 gain. The difference was the result of offsetting losses. Senator Kerry's other largest sources of income last year were his $147,818 U.S. Senate salary and royalties of $89,220 from his campaign book, A Call to Service: My Vision for a Better America (Viking, 2003). His tax payment was $90,575.
In an election year, the sale of the work has become a minor campaign issue, first because of the amount of money that the senator?who is seeking to project a friend-of-the-people image to the electorate?and his wife possess, and second because the senator underpaid his tax liability for the capital gain. Senator Kerry, who files his tax return separately from his wife, paid a capital gain of only 20% on the profit of the sale of the painting (the rate at which most equities, such as stocks and real estate are taxed) rather than the 28% that applies strictly to the sale of collectibles. The difference, as reported on Senator Kerry's amended tax return, was $11,577, which he paid on April 15, 2004.
John Kerry addressed his followers on the campaign trail and dismissed this as just another example of the "Republican Attack Machine". Sen. Kerry announced that he told his speech writer to take those words out of his declaration on his tax returns, and that he meant to declare the Capital Gains all along :-)
Gee, if he handles his personal business in such a manner - how could he possibly handle the nation's business?
An error on taxes? I thought he supposedly knew all about taxes.
Gotcha now, brother!
Now, let's elaborate on this until kingdom come, just like those journalists that back the Dem's.
This can't be right------I thought this man wanted the rich to pay their "fair share" and this is trying not to pay one's fair share
PING!
He certainly does seem to have a problem with money...
J EFFIN KERRY has vowed to go after all of the tax dodgers and cheats, you can bet on that one...
Ha, I knew that painting would come back to haunt him. I, for one, would like to see his personal bank statement showing that his money, not Tay's, bought his quarter interest in the painting.
He must have been so busy figuring out how to check the box for the voluntary 5.85% tax rate in Massachusetts, before he didn't check it, that he completely forgot about that 30 large!
Nice to be so rich (or live off someone so rich) that you can "forget" about 30 grand!
As Dukakis was so fond of saying when caugth doing something like this, "It was an oversight."
Pictures? We must have pictures.
(Sniffle) Gosh, Dims are so forgiving (sob), and their tolerance and compassion knows no bounds (bawl).
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