Posted on 12/30/2007 1:49:31 PM PST by Daffynition
PORTLAND, Maine - When Steve Kahn got a $26,000 tax bill on his airplane, he thought Maine Revenue Services had made a mistake. Kahn lives, works, and keeps his plane in Massachusetts.
But the bill was no error. It was part of the agency's efforts to collect taxes on aircraft owned by out-of-state residents, even though they bought their planes elsewhere and brought them to Maine only to visit.
A number of other states, from Florida to Washington, are doing the same as they grapple with budget shortfalls and as the Internet makes it easier to track the comings and goings of aircraft.
Many pilots are outraged.
"At best what Maine is doing is underhanded and devious; at worst it is illegal," Kahn said. "Either way, it's wrong."
Maine officials say they are simply enforcing the state's laws when they send bills, into six figures, to out-of-state plane owners.
At issue in Maine is the state's use tax, which applies to many goods and services bought out of state that are not subject to sales tax. In the case of airplanes, tax officials say, the law allows them to collect a 5 percent use tax from people who did not pay sales taxes on their planes if they brought their plane to Maine for more than 20 days, excluding time for maintenance and alterations, in the first year of ownership.
"We're charged with administering the law," said David Bauer, a tax policy analyst with Maine Revenue Services. "We didn't write it."
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Think of CA residents who spend winter weekends in Lake Tahoe, NV.
We don't. It's over, dude. There is only one option. And that would result only in a partial restoration.
I wonder if that rule or a similar rule, applies to RVs, and cars...
If Hellary gets elected, we’ll be seeing more of the collectivist tripe.
The plane owner paid all required taxes when they purchased the plane.
They shouldn’t be charged more sales tax for using it in another state.
But they don't have to collect it.
The law was written by and enforced by greedy, corrupt politicians who just can't keep their hands out of anyone else's pockets.
It sounds like a good way to kill any state's tourist business.
“Massachusetts does not levy any kind of sales tax for residents who purchase a plane.”
It’s the Kennedy/Kerry/Romney exemption. They get the best government that money can buy!
Soaking the rich is hard because (1) rich people are not generaous with their money unless it buys them convenience; (2) rich people know a heck of a lot more about making and keeping money than any gaggle of legislators. My guess is that taxes like this are mainly show. They simply wanted to quiet the complaints of middle-class people about the higher and higher taxes that middle-class people can’t avoid.
What a thieving pack of runts.
Why must everyone gratuitously insult Applalachia?
This is down easters actin’ stupid. Nothin’ to do with mountain folk at all..
Sell Maine to canada. Send everyone a check for their share. Checks expire in 90 days. Anybody who thinks they should be paying more taxes, just sit on the check for 91 days.
So buy a piece of dirt in a neighboring state, build a landing strip and offer to have pilots fly their planes there after dropping off said owners in Maine. The fuel and tiedown would be quite less than some of these tax bills?
as I understood the story here, this isn’t a residency issue. The man was sent a tax bill for bringing his plane into ME several times over the course of the year ... he doesn’t live in ME, or work in ME or keep the plane in ME. He just brings his plane into ME for business or pleasure (the why is irrelevant). He wasn’t claiming ME residency.
It would be comparable to my driving from VA to PA to visit a client once or twice a month for a year, then being sent a tax bill from PA for my car.
Better be careful, don’t want to give the state authorities any more ideas ;)
You’ve come up with the perfect solution. Make them take Collins and Snowe and the lunatic DIMwits at the state level as part of the deal and detain them for life on a Canadian commune with restricted travel and communication so they don’t corrupt Canada.
Exactly why did you decide to slander Mississippians in this manner? You can say a lot of things about the State but a "frozen quasi-Socialist economic backwater" it is not!
If the official in charge of this outrage were hanged from a lamppost by a lynch mob, no jury I sat on would vote to convict.
-ccm
Wait until states start charging airlines for flying through their airspace.
25 years ago Kalifornia pulled a trick like this with boat owners, raised sales tax ridiculously high. Marinas went under, dealerships closed, manufacturers started laying off staff. It really hurt the industry and ended up costing the state a lot of money in unemployment and lost sales tax.
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