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From Roll Call:
The District of Columbia Office of Tax and Revenue will charge Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and his spouse $5,600 in back property taxes for their Georgetown home, following a nearly two-month review of the property’s tax status.
The Missouri lawmaker and his wife, Abigail Perlman Blunt, own a three-bedroom Georgetown home, valued at $1.62 million in tax assessment records.
According to public tax records, the Blunts’ home had received the homestead tax deduction as recently as April, a benefit intended for full-time city residents that can shave hundreds of dollars off annual tax bills – and significantly more in the long term by limiting assessment increases.
One thing I don’t get is this:
“After five years of repeated requests, the D.C. government finally updated their records to accurately reflect the Blunts’ tax status,” Blunt spokesman Nick Simpson said Thursday.
The D.C. tax office began its review of Blunt’s status in April, after the Kansas City Star reported the House lawmaker’s D.C. home was receiving a tax break.
If Blunt had been trying to get his DC area home properly registered under the correct tax status for five years, you would think the review would have started sometime before April, which is coincidentally when the KC Star broke the story.
Call me a cynic, but my guess is that Blunt didn’t try very hard to make sure he didn’t receive the homestead exemption.
I’m also skeptical that any leading Republicans will appear on the talking head cable shows this weekend to point out Blunt’s tax problems.
duckhunter said:
did not pay his taxes. the way the irs sees it is if you know that they have made an error in you tax assessment, your attempt to have the error corrected does not excuse the fact that you owe taxes and that you have not paid them. this is a bullshit answer. blunt should have paid the taxes if he knew that he owed them. no if, ands or buts. the irs would have corrected the mistake quick like if he did.
Michael Bersin said:
…only the little people pay taxes.
LumberJock said:
1. IRS doesn’t have squat to do with this. It’s a DC local tax – like a county tax elsewhere.
2. If he qualifies for homestead exemption, I think that eliminates him as a resident of Missouri.
3. Attendant to homestead exemptions that I’ve seen is being a registered voter of the community. If he’s registered in DC, he may not represent a district in Missouri, and Eleanor Holmes Norton already represents DC in Congress.