Capital Eye - Keeping Track of McCain's Houses (opensecrets.org)

[Muttocracy]

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/08/keeping-track-of-mccains-house.html


Keeping Track of McCain's Houses
Published by Lindsay Renick Mayer on August 22, 2008 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's not only John McCain who's foggy on how many houses he owns. His staff has said four, Barack Obama's campaign (which has used the comment to make McCain seem disconnected from the average American, and confused) has said seven and media reports have put the number at eight...or more.

The truth is...it's hard to tell based on McCain's annual personal financial disclosures. The properties all appear to belong technically to McCain's wife, Cindy, who has set up dedicated corporations to own the properties, a common tool among the wealthy to ensure legal protection and flexibility in paying taxes. The details about the properties are essentially hidden behind these corporations, so McCain hasn't listed addresses for the homes and information about the properties are obscured by his wealthy wife's complicated finances.

McCain isn't breaking any disclosure rules, however. He has provided the information required--descriptions and locations of the corporations that own the properties--but he's not required to provide any details about the properties themselves. According to CRP's personal finances researcher, Dan Auble, investors who have a group of accountants to manage their finances can create these complicated arrangements where the actual asset is owned by a partnership or trust. But without more stringent disclosure requirements, the public has trouble making sense of them.

CRP has calculated that, including the value of both his wife's and dependents' assets, McCain is one of the Senate's wealthiest members, worth between $27.8 million and $45 million as of his filing for 2006. Obama ranked in the Senate's bottom half, worth somewhere between $456,012 to $1,142,000, but that was before the success of his books. We're in the process of using reports for 2007, which members of Congress filed earlier this summer, to calculate their personal wealth.

[Diane R]

1. How much tax money does Cindy avoid paying by purchasing the homes through a corp, not in her name?

[valerief]

2. I wouldn't be surprised if the answer was "all of it." nt

[JeffR]

4. It would for damn sure be "most of it"

at a minimum.

[FrenchieCat]

3. Kick for some sanity around here!

[Muttocracy]

6. Another dose if you need it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6735500

[jillan]

5. BIG kick!