Mitt Romney received some major tax relief from San Diego on his La Jolla mansion. As you know San Diego is home to Ok! Here is the Situation….so this situation hits real close to “home” for us. And if you have read my posts you know that I am very involved in uncovering shady real estate shenanigans and saving historic properties so this situation is definitely on my radar. Mitt and Ann Romney purchased their $12-million La Jolla home in 2008 in cash, of course.
After paying cash for the Mediterranean-style beach front property, they asked San Diego County for serious property tax relief–property taxes as in those taxes that fund our schools.
Romney’s wealth is estimated at $250 million so why he needed to underpay his tax liability is astounding. The Romneys asked that their 2009 assessment, $12.24 million, be reduced to $6.8 million, maintaining that their home had lost about 45% of its value in the first seven months they owned it — seriously! We know the housing markets gone down but it did not go down 45% between 2008 and 2009.
They must have realized that was even a bit too much for a Presidential candidate and the already corrupt County of San Diego didn’t want to draw too much attention to themselves — attention that could instigate a DOJ investigation by the Obama Administration so they lowered their ridiculous demand to another slightly-lower ridiculous demand — claiming the home’s value fell 27.3%, to $8.9 million.
They then filed an appeal for the 2010 tax year, claiming the house had dropped further, to $7.5 million, 38.7% less than the home’s assessed value saving them a total of $109,000 in property taxes over four years (who is on welfare now?).
It all seems interesting in light of Romney’s comments about poor people collecting welfare as a burden to society. I agree their are entitlement issues on both ends of the spectrum, but I’d say the multi-millionare seeking 100s of thousands of dollars in tax relief trumps the person collecting $200 a month in food stamps.
What a situation!!!!