John Kerry Parks Yacht in RI to avoid Mass Taxes!

pay taxes!?? why, nonono.... those are for the little people...

Sen. John Keryr, 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...

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...

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....

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...

And yet were this a Republican senator and a Democrat posting this, people would be coming in with "It's a free market! He can do what he wants with his money!'

When I visit my folks in California I buy enough cigarettes in Arizona so I can avoid paying the CA tax on them as much as I can. I also park sometimes in no-parking between 2-8pm areas. I think avoiding taxes is as patriotic as mom and apple pie. Hell I'd be MORE concerned if he just mindlessly paid all his taxes and followed every single rule just cause the government told him too.

i thought paying your taxes was patriotic?

I point is that this kind of tax evasion is something everyone does, people cross state borders for tax breaks all the time whether to buy cigarettes, cars, gasoline, alcohol, or whatever else they might find cheaper close by. When I bought my first car after high school I actually had my mother buy it for a military discount and I just paid her with money I'd earned at a part-time job. Why? To save money, but yes I was skirting the system, as does everyone.

There's better things to point out when it comes to Sen. Kerry.

Wiseone said:

I point is that this kind of tax evasion is something everyone does, people cross state borders for tax breaks all the time whether to buy cigarettes, cars, gasoline, alcohol, or whatever else they might find cheaper close by. When I bought my first car after high school I actually had my mother buy it for a military discount and I just paid her with money I'd earned at a part-time job. Why? To save money, but yes I was skirting the system, as does everyone.

There's better things to point out when it comes to Sen. Kerry.

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Everyone does it as an excuse??? Isn't that the rationale that Nixon tried to use for Watergate.

Hoplite said:

And yet were this a Republican senator and a Democrat posting this, people would be coming in with "It's a free market! He can do what he wants with his money!'

Click to expand...

And if that republican senator goes out there with his Thurston Howell the III voice and calls out rich people for failing to pay their taxes I'll call HIM a piece of **** hypocrite too...something YOU are absoultely unable to do because you have this incredible need to defend all things democrat

I don't see anything wrong with it. Hell, I'd do it if I had the money for a 76-foot yacht. Hell, I'd do it for a skiff if I had one.

The issue is not that a person is doing this, it's that Kerry is doing this. It is him, and other members of his party that are the party of higher taxation, attacks and criticism of the wealthy and others who are generally hit hardest by the tax code, etc.

This is a politician being a hypocrite. He can park his boat wherever he wants, but people will take note the next time he votes to end tax cuts against "wealthy" americans who "should be paying their fair share."

Well, considering the hit he and Theresa are going to take when the Bush cuts expire, I don't blame him for wanting to dodge where he can. :mrgreen:

This story is a few weeks old. Kerry has paid the taxes he would have owed were the yacht docked in Mass. even though he insists that what he had done was perfectly legal. Paid in full, the gentleman is correct in sailing.