Homestead Tax Credit

Via the Washington City Paper, it looks like Roy Blunt's Georgetown mansion is for sale.  List price?  $1.595 million.  Key selling point?  It was apparently JFK's first house in Georgetown.

Interested parties may contact Washington Fine Properties.

Georgetown Metropolitan has details and pictures:

JFK’s first house in Georgetown is currently for sale. From 1947 to 1949, then Congressmen John Kennedy lived at 1528 31st. St. with his sister Eunice Kennedy.

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Please update your records: Roy Blunt and Abigail Perlman Blunt are no longer residents of Washington, DC.

Accordingly, they have been sent a bill for $6,820 in back taxes on their $1.6 million Georgetown mansion:

The District of Columbia Office of Tax and Revenue will charge Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and his spouse $6,820 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.

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.

Per a new story in Roll Call, I see that District of Columbia officials are still trying to sort out the ongoing problems with the tax breaks applied to the $1.6 million mansion belonging to Roy Blunt and Abigail Perlman Blunt. As first reported by the KC Star -- and subsequently examined by Fired Up! -- Blunt and Perlman have improperly received more than $8,100 in property tax breaks meant for District residents. 

A spokeswoman for the D.C. tax office said Friday the home’s status continues to be reviewed. In response to an earlier inquiry about the review, spokeswoman Natalie Wilson said: “Due to the complexity of the case, we are reviewing all documents and filings before a decision is made.”

Blunt’s office has characterized the tax status as an error on the part of District officials.

“The Blunts never requested this exemption and asked the D.C. government to correct the error,” said spokesman Nick Simpson. “When they discovered this credit was still being applied to their home, they again asked for its correction. Their request has been re-sent as recent as last week.”

In the meantime, D.C. tax assessment records indicate the home continues to receive the benefit, and is taxed at $1.55 million, slightly below its full assessment value.

This latest story raises at least three pertinent issues.

In early April, the Kansas City Star broke the news that Roy Blunt and Abigail Perlman-Blunt were improperly receiving tax breaks on their mansion in Washington, DC. Until very recently, the DC government has considered Blunt and Perlman to be full-time District residents. However, since both also claim to be Missouri residents, they should not have received the special tax breaks meant for DC residents. (A letter from the District government explaining the residency requirements may be found here, courtesy of Roll Call.) 

Interested in the total amount and timeline of the breaks, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the District for more information. Among other things, the documents provided by the District show that the total tax breaks were actually higher than first reported, and that the breaks were applied to each tax bill since 2004 (Abigail began voting in Missouri in 2004). Here are some of the key bits of information from the docs: 

• All together, the Blunts appear to have received more than $8,100 in property tax breaks as DC residents since 2004.
• The Georgetown house should have been assessed and taxed at $1.62 million, but was capped by the DC government at $1.55 million for  2009 on the assumption that Blunt's were full-time DC residents. 
• Roy Blunt's name was listed on the tax bills for years 2007, 2008 and 2009. This is relevant when considering his campaign's attempts to suggest it was an Abigail-only problem.
• The property's homestead status and benefits were printed on the tax bills sent to Blunt and Perlman by the DC Government for all relevant years. 

Roll Call is reporting that five other Members of Congress will be required to pay back taxes for their own illegal homestead tax benefits.

The District of Columbia will not impose interest payments or penalties on a handful of House lawmakers who inadvertently received a property tax break intended for city residents, reducing the one-time corrective bills by a combined $23,000.

However, the tax situation for Roy and Abigail Blunt is different than almost every other Members of Congress caught with an improper homestead tax break.  The typical homestead tax problem occurs when a Member buys a new property in DC, and the tax break is automatically applied to the property. 

In contrast, Abigail Pearlman was already a DC resident, and then became a Missouri resident in 2004 when she became Abigail Pearlman Blunt.  The Blunts were required to end their homestead status by filling out a one-page form, but did not.

The Post-Dispatch has reprinted an inaccurate account of the tax benefits enjoyed by Roy and Abigail Blunt on their $1.6 million DC mansion:  

District of Columbia law allows a residential property owner — in this case, Blunt's wife, Abigail — to deduct $67,500 from the assessed value of a home if it serves as the owner's primary residence.

It was clear before the story was written -- see our post and the update from The Star -- that Roy and Abigail Blunt own the house together. 

With Blunt's refusal to take responsibility and lame excuses, this is a relevant detail.

The Blunts are denying all responsibility for their DC tax breaks. From Politico.com:

"When it was discovered there were House members who had a problem with this issue, we checked the record to ensure that the D.C. government’s records correctly showed Mrs. Blunt as not receiving the provision," Rich Chrismer said. "...This is clearly a mistake by the D.C. government and not Mrs. Blunt."

This complete passing of the buck is surprising on a few fronts. In no particular order:  

• "Mrs. Blunt"?  As we noted early this afternoon, the Georgetown mansion belongs to both Roy and Abigail Blunt. This fact was subsequently confirmed by the KC Star.  In both sentences quoted by Politico, Chrismer suggests that "Mrs. Blunt" was the sole owner. Why?
• When did the Blunts "ensure" that the homestead exemption was removed?  Chrismer said that they "checked the record to ensure that the D.C. government’s records correctly showed Mrs. Blunt as not receiving the provision." When did that happen?  Last week?  Or in 2004, after which point the homestead deduction just reappeared for no apparent reason?
• How is this "clearly a mistake by the DC Government?"  The house belongs to Roy and Abigail Blunt. It's their house, and their responsibility.

UPDATE: Jo Mannies at the Beacon is reporting that Blunt is also trying to deflect blame by pointing to the fact that Senator Kit Bond, former Sen. Jean Carnahan and AG John Aschroft all had their own homestead tax issues in 2004 or 2005.  So I'll ask again: why was Blunt unable to deal with this problem four or five years ago? 

I'm really curious to see how the Roy Blunt (R-K Street/Georgetown) team responds to follow-up questions about the tax breaks he and his wife have been enjoying as full-time residents of Washington, DC. 

First, I don't see how Blunt can reasonably expect people to believe that he is an innocent victim of the District of Columbia government.  There were stories in 2004 about Members of Congress improperly receiving homestead tax breaks, when Blunt says he asked the DC government to address the issue. There were stories in 2005. There were even stories last month about Members' illegal homestead deductions. The whole while, information about his mansion's homestead status was easily available, and was printed on every tax assessment form he received from the District. Blunt had to know this was a potential problem, and didn't care enough to check, or didn't think he would get caught.

Second, the response in this morning's story gives the impression that Blunt was not aware of the problem until The Star brought it to his attention.  However, when comparing the publicly-available data from two weeks ago to what's up now, there is evidence of very recent activity regarding the property's official status with the District government. On March 14, DC records listed "Roy D. Blunt Trustee" as the owner.  But now, as the Star notes, Abigail Blunt is listed as the owner. It's possible that the property database just randomly changed so that it no longer shows Missourian Congressman Roy Blunt as the owner of a $1.6 million house in Northwest Washington, but that would be quite a coincidence.

In this morning's KC Star:

Records show [U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt] from Springfield, who is running for U.S. Senate, may have erroneously received a homestead exemption for a $1.6 million residence in Georgetown.

District of Columbia law allows a residential property owner — in this case, Blunt’s wife, Abigail — to deduct $67,500 from the assessed value of a home if it serves as the owner’s primary residence...

Records show the district also applied what’s called a tax assessment credit to the property, which caps the growth of taxes owed on the home. If the district determines that credit was improperly used, the Blunts’ potential back tax liability could go up.

The article also states that Blunt asked DC Councilman Jack Evans to fix the issue in "early 2004."  I know that Blunt has a hard time imagining what it's like for regular folks, but when normal people need to cancel their homestead tax deduction, they don't ask a DC Councilperson. They just fill out this one-page form that's very easy to find at www.dc.gov, and mail it in.  Problem solved!