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In news that serves as just comeuppance in the eyes of many area Democrats, Republican political mastermind Karl Rove is now finding himself in, well, luke-warm water over recent revelations that he has for years been receiving an illegal tax break on his $1.1 million home in the Palisades.
The break -- known as the homestead exemption -- allows District residents deduct $38,000 from the assessable value of their homes and caps annual property tax increases at 12 percent, a privilege limited in 2002 to include only those homeowners registered to vote in the city. This is where Rove seems to have tripped up -- he's registered in Texas, not the District. As penance for what he termed an oversight, Rove has agreed to pay $3,400 in back taxes to the city and forego the exemption from now on.
Not that this is anything new, though -- the Post reported in May that 22 senators were similarly enjoying the homestead exemption on their homes in the District, though none of them were registered to vote here.
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As a solider assigned to the DC area, I find the District's policies unusually hostile (or at least insensitive) to the military. This is yet another example. I've been a Florida resident ever since I enlisted, and none of the 8 other states I've lived in have hassled me about it, but when I moved to DC, I had to relinquish my Florida license in order to register my car, and now I find that my taxes will be higher unless I symbolically give up my Florida voter registration. Over a 22-year career, I've never encountered a jurisdiction with so many military-unfriendly policies.
I, too, experienced the same exact thing on the driver's license bit. I think it's offensive. I'm sorry to hear of GIJ's experiences. There's something inappropriate to say the least about having member-of-the-military-unfriendly policies in our nation's capital.
As for the Rove thing ... here's what I think.
These situations where offenders (usually businesses or white-collar criminals) are "punished" by having to repay their illegal gains, and that's all, drive me crazy. What incentive is there to obey the law if your situation if you're caught breaking it is exactly the same as, or better than, your situation if you obey it in the first place? The more it happens, the more law-abiding folks feel like suckers.
Absolutely right, KC. Plus, there's one other side to it that I forgot to write about in my above link: uniformed, white men in armbands at polling places in low-income communities of color. Karl Rove hasn't met whatever his equivalent of that is when he goes to vote, or, uh, mails in his ballot.