Walz introduces bill to end tax breaks for luxury yacht owners
Wednesday, May 04, 2011 at 9:09 am
- 8 Comments
Rep. Tim Walz introduced legislation on Tuesday that would end tax subsidies for luxury yachts. The IRS provides breaks for taxpayers who own yachts that have kitchens and bathrooms and therefore could qualify as a residence — even if the taxpayers don’t live there full time.
“We’re going to have to make some hard decisions to tackle our national debt, but this isn’t one of them,” Walz said in a statement Tuesday. “Closing this tax loophole restores the Mortgage Interest Deduction to its original purpose: helping middle-class families realize the American Dream through home ownership.”
Walz introduced the bill along with fellow Democratic Reps. Mike Quigley of Illinois and Gary Peters of Michigan.
“We need to get the deficit under control, and that means simplifying the tax code and eliminating special interest tax giveaways like the Yacht Loophole,” Peters said. “Home ownership is part of the American Dream and we should encourage it, but yacht owners don’t need any special handouts, especially in the middle of a budget crisis.”
Loopholes for yacht owners also exist in state law and, in general, Republicans have resisted efforts to close those loopholes. In California, Republicans rejected a similar effort in 2008. In 2010, in Missouri, a bipartisan bill was offered to repeal tax breaks for yacht owners, but the Republican controlled Legislature adjourned without taking up the bill. Republicans in Texas this year have proposed a tax breaks for yacht owners and it’s already passed key committees.
Closing the federal loophole has been tried before: Republican Senator John Danforth of Missouri offered a bill in 1987 to close it, but was not successful.
A 2004 estimate of the cost of the tax breaks was more than $1 billion.
Follow Andy Birkey on Twitter8 Comments
Comment posted May 4, 2011 @ 2:40 pm
What’s this? A bill to try and help the economic problems we are having.
Comment posted May 5, 2011 @ 1:44 pm
Giving wealthy yacht owners tax breaks is necessary for economic prosperity. But giving people affordable health care is socialism. Got it.
The class war is out in the open like never before in my lifetime.
Comment posted May 6, 2011 @ 7:53 am
Can`t Wait! I can`t wait for GOP leaders to tell us why this bill is a “bad idea”, Undoubtedly, it`s out of sync with supply-side “logic”. Well, this should be interesting.
Comment posted May 6, 2011 @ 11:07 am
The sad thing is this probably won’t even get a committee hearing, so there won’t be a vote to hang around the Republicans’ necks.
Comment posted May 6, 2011 @ 2:32 pm
This is clearly an anti-jobs proposal. Why do Democrats hate rich people?
Comment posted May 6, 2011 @ 4:34 pm
I love rich people. They buy things and then they become cheaper down the road so one day I can buy one.
Fed taxes started around 1910 and only the top 1% of wage earners paid fed taxes for several decades.
Then the war machine for WW2 demanded that all pay taxes and it has done nothing but go up since then. Oh except it went down for the top 10% starting around 1980.
Nobody hates rich people thats just stupid. We just want them to pay a fair share. In other words flat tax 20% for everyone with no tax breaks for anyone.
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Comment posted May 25, 2011 @ 6:32 pm
I don’t hate rich people. i don’t hate any people. I however get annoyed with people that make rude remarks against people that work equally as hard in a job that needs to be done and pay more taxes per dollar made. I would just like rich people to become regular.. and not as protected as they are. It gives them way too much time to demean the mere peasants that raise their food, sew their clothes, make their expensive vehicles and many other menial jobs that are not viewed as “hard work”.
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