Quote:Representative Charles B. Rangel has earned more than $75,000 in rental income from a villa he has owned in the Dominican Republic since 1988, but never reported it on his federal or state tax returns, according to a lawyer for the congressman and documents from the resort.
Mr. Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the federal tax code, bought the beachfront villa at the Punta Cana Yacht Club and has received twice-yearly payments from the resort, which rents the property for $500 or more per night.
Records from the development, now called the Punta Cana Resort and Club, indicated that Mr. Rangel’s rental profits varied from year to year, from $2,700 in 2004 to $7,600 in 1994.
Mr. Rangel will probably have no federal tax liability, Mr. Davis said, because he considered the villa an investment rather than a vacation home, and was therefore entitled to deduct depreciation on the property, as well as taxes the resort management paid to the Dominican Republic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/nyregion/05rangel.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
I don't like people not paying their taxes while I do so. I don't know yet if Rangel has simply gotten bad advice or actually tried to beat the taxman, regardless he has already painted a bullseye on his back by renting four spacious rent-controlled apartments in an area that has limited housing.
I hope the press crawls up this guy's rectum with a microscope.
What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander and if those of us on the Left gnash our teeth over the likes of Bob Ney or Tom Delay we ought subject those on our side with similar scrutiny.