I'd love to fly one of those.
Posted on 03/21/2011 1:24:51 PM PDT by jazusamo
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo) failed to pay $287,273 in personal property taxes on a private airplane for the past four years and will immediately repay St. Louis County for back taxes owed.
She’s also planning on selling the plane, which she co-owns with her husband, after POLITICO revealed last week that she had used taxpayer dollars for a political trip around her home state of Missouri. McCaskill had spent $76,000 from her Senate budget on trips on the aircraft over the past four years.
McCaskill called a Monday press conference after POLITICO asked questions about whether she had paid her personal property taxes on the aircraft.
“I have convinced my husband to sell the damn plane,” McCaskill said on a conference call with reporters. “I will never set foot on the plane again.”
The payment of back taxes and the sale of the aircraft is the latest chapter in what has become an embarrassment and a political problem for McCaskill, who is up for re-election next year in a critical swing state.
McCaskill said there was no effort to evade taxes, noting that she had paid $38,800 in sales taxes on the plane for the past 55 months. But she said she was “disappointed” in herself for not ensuring the property taxes were paid.
“There are people I could blame for this,” she said. “[But] I take full responsibility for the mistake. I shouldn’t have assumed somebody was doing it.”
That’s quite an ad by the NRSC. LOL!
Who does she think she is???? Nancy Pelosi??? Only SanFran Nan gets to ride for free!
Sure, didn’t you know, it’s the plane’s fault! This is all good though, because it makes good campaign fodder. She needs to go, and now is the time.
It validates here attitude towards the cost of Obamacare, of which she was a sock puppet advocate. I recall that she scolded the rest of us that we were opposed to Obamacare simply because she had not explained it well enough. No, Senator, with all due respect, I understand this tyrannous law quite sufficiently.
I heard in passing that she has over 300 other LLCs that her campaign committee reimbursed for various things. No disclosure as to what each LLC was for.
Seems like she has picked up being an insider power-Democrat like it was second nature.
Who knew you had to pay taxes for a plane especially 200,000 grand. That is highway robbery if you ask me. Her house is probably 28,000 for the same time frame. Ridiculous. Plus I thought most people have accountants. Certainly she could afford one. No use doing them yourself when you can have the experts do it.
I’m guessing I would be in all kinds of hot water if I owed the Govmnt that kind of dough.
Not really. They would just take the house. Wesley Snipes situation was federal taxes and not property taxes which have different rules. Plus Wesley refused to write a check like Clare did. If Wesley would have simply wrote a check, he would not be in jail today.
The personal property tax (cars, boats, etc) is reduced each year depending on the value of the vehicle. We also pay property tax on our home and land which is quite low.
All in all, this combination of taxes is still lower than Iowa, Minnesota or other states and much lower than Illinois.
In order to get new tags for your car, you have to bring proof of having paid last year’s car tax. We have two boats, a pickup truck and a car (but no airplane.) Taxes on all amount to less than $350.
I'd love to fly one of those.
A fair tax is a “tax on income” earned in each year. Nothing more. Property tax is levied by counties on property owned such as a house, airplane, office building and office and farm equipment. The rule is if you can depreciate it on your federal tax, the county can levy a fee for each year you use it based on the purchase price. And don’t forget the state picked up their “sales tax” when the plane was purchased. Every form of government has their grubby little hands out demanding payment. I don’t like politicians who practice do as I say, not as I do politics, but our system is fatally broken for everyone.
It’s a reasonable rate. I’m not sure if I could be well organized enough to ensure that I paid taxes on everything like that. But it does stretch her credibility to say she didn’t realize she didn’t pay taxes on a little thing like a plane.
When we lived in Minnesota, I wanted to join (become a partner) in a four person airplane ownership club. The downstroke was substantial and being the fourth man in, my air time would be Tuesdays and Wednesdays. But the main attraction was the opportunity to learn to fly and to get some hours. At about the same time, we decided to sell our house and build a new place on the lake in Prior Lake (south Twin Cities metro.)
We couldn’t quite swing both. My wife put it, “the house or the airplane; which is it ?”
Not learning to fly or owning a piece of the airplane is one of my disappointments, especially since my dad was a flyer in the 1930s and 40s, lastly in the China-Burma-India Campaign.
You should have said, “Dear, I can live in a plane, but I can’t fly a house.”
Turned out that her instincts were superior to mine. The year after we built our McMansion, a new bridge was built connecting the south metro to Bloomington over the Minnesota River.
Prior Lake moved from being a 5th or 6th tier suburb to being a 2nd tier (for Bloomington) suburb with lakefront. That bridge did wonders for property values. We took our Yankee money and headed south in 2001.
Can't say I'm a CPA or understand the particulars of Missouri tax law, but it sounds to me that this should be something on a corporate tax basis rather than personal property tax. Is it 'Sunset Cove Associates, LLC' a ficticous entity, who owes the taxes? Or is the person. If it is the corporation known as Sunset, why is it liable for 'personal property' tax?
I just don't get it. I have known a few guys who 'owned" airplanes, but they would generally put them under a business entity and rent them to others when the opportunity arose and made it a business proposition and paid the taxes on that basis.
But it would have to be some very bodacious airplane to owe over $70 k per year on any personal property tax that I have heard of.
Something is not adding up to me. Not even to mention that I think any 'personal property tax' other than real estate that can't be moved, should be unconstitutional.
If it is neither based on income, (a bad way to do it) or on spending, (a better way) who the hell is the government (at any level) to determine the amount a car, boat or airplane is worth? It's BS.
Depends on what state you live in, and in her case being a long time state political parasite, she was aware of the tax. I can almost believe she thought the hired help was taking care of it but I would bet that she went a few years skipping the tax and decided that if they don't ask, she wouldn't tell. It's always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. ;~))
What is the reason why it is called a twin engine piper in the article? The only aircraft I can find listed for Sunset cove or Timesavers is a Pilatus. Here is a picture of the Timesavers aircraft.
http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviation-photos/photos/1/4/4/0464441.jpg
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