You raise a good point – the IRS is calling this a “tax scam” when in fact it’s a part of the tax code. They aren’t prosecuting it because they can’t – it’s perfectly legal. As I mentioned before, I’m sure there are a number of people who own historic properties who bought them fully restored and didn’t have those extraordinary restoration costs; in a sense they would be “free riders” on the system. But what the IRS is suggesting is that some homeowners shouldn’t be able to use the credit because of the geographic location of their homes, i.e., because they are located in historic districts which theoretically limit them from making any changes to the exterior of the homes they own. Except that’s pretty much bullshit, because as I also noted before, in most cases the enforcement authority of historic district commissions is limited, and there’s no guarantee that their guidelines won’t change or that they won’t be dissolved altogether. The exterior easement stays in place in perpetuity and would continue to encumber future owners of the property, even if the district no longer exists.

Typically the mortgage company will agree to the easement, at least in my experience. Then again, in my experience private non-profits don’t solicit owners of historic properties to grant easements. For the most part, the people I’ve written these things for are using them to recoup some of the restoration costs. Contrary to popular belief, there are no tax incentives for restoring (as in, maintaining the historic features rather than simply rehabbing) a historic home, which is WAY WAY more expensive than remodeling your run of the mill mid-to-late 20th century spec house; available restoration tax credits apply only to buildings being put to commercial use. I think that’s part of the theory and intent behind the easement tax credit: one, it’s a one-time partial offset of restoration costs, and two, once the easement is in place, there’s a much lower possibility of having the restored home turned into a rooming house or whatever, which is what happened to a lot of the historic housing stock in a number of cities in the 50′s through the 80′s – and why so much of it required such extensive and costly restoration. That’s the theory, anyway – that it keeps it out of the hands of people who would make changes damaging the historic character of the building.

I’m sure there are people taking advantage of the credit simply because it’s there, but overall, for the people I was writing for, it simply helped them recoup some of the extraordinary costs associated with taking on a true restoration project. Credits in the $10,000 – $25,000 range on restorations that cost $100,000 & sometimes several times that amount doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable.

Wow, I’m actually an expert on this arcane subject, having written numerous facade easement applications for owners of historic properties. Here, the easements were transferred to the state historic preservation agency; I’ve never heard of them being transferred to a non-government non-profit agency, but I’m not an expert on who the law allows as beneficiaries in the transfer of the facade, but such easements are in a broad sense legal – there is legislation that allows them. Essentially the current owner of the property donates ownership of the exterior facades and/or features; that portion of the property is assigned a value as a percentage of the property’s total value by an appraiser, and a one-time tax deduction can be taken by the current owner based on the appraised value of the facades. The downside is that it’s a negative when selling the property – new owners don’t get to take the easement back, and the impoundment of the facade remains in perpetuity, limiting what they can do with the building. Most historic districts have some control over what goes on in the district, but in most cases it’s not absolute. So it’s unclear whether or not Gomez’ was completely barred from making any changes by the commission, but even if he was, there’s nothing really dodgy about him taking advantage of a legal deduction. It still encumbers the property in a way that others in the district are not, and in the event of a sale of the property, probably lowers its value. So far so good.

The real question for me comes from the amount claimed as a deduction. The typical appraisal value for facade easements comes in at around 10 – 13% of the property’s total appraised value. So right off the hook, Gomez’ property would have to be valued at something in the $2.2 – $2.85 million range. Perhaps it is. The other question is if it fits IRS guidelines for this type of deduction; the rules here would be the same as those applying to other types of charitable contributions. I don’t know what those rules are, if they allow a full dollar-for-dollar deduction, or what.

Another Palin point of reference vis a vis Nancy Brinker: Compared with Palin, who took in over $5 million for “SarahPAC” but contributed only some $350K to candidates, Brinker’s a piker.

For all values of “interesting” where “interesting” = “stating the obvious.”

Romney lost because he did not appeal to the millions of Americans who have seen their standard of living decline over the past decades. They’re nervous about the future. When Romney did not address their concerns, they either voted for Obama or didn’t vote at all. If the next Republican candidate can address their concerns effectively, he will win.

He’s onto something in the first couple of sentences, but then goes all delusional in the third. Course that’s the root of the problem, right there: in the comments section at the link, there’s moaning about how them illegal furriners took er jerbs! and the election was stolen, so appealing to those folks’ reason isn’t an option, because you can’t appeal to what does not exist. So we’ll see more of the same: demonization of everyone who isn’t “white and delightsome” and further calls to cut taxes for billionaires, and a continual shrinking in the Republican base. And boy are they ever.

Also, too: note that at the time young Master Savader was attempting to blackmail these women, it was within a month of the election. Apparently serving as an intern to the Romney campaign was not too taxing to get in the way of taking some time out for fapping. Then again, one could say that the entire Romney campaign consisted of fapping.

boy, I can sure pick’em.

I’d modify that to “boy, they sure can pick’em,” though you are second to none in being able to spot them. Of course, just knowing they’re young Republicans is a pretty glaring clue. But I gotta hand it to you – this time, it was only 9 days from the time you first brought young Master Savader to our attention to when he was arrested. That’s impressive.

No doubt Gingrich, Romney and Ryan all picked up on something in Savader’s manner or character that tipped them off that he was “one of us” when it comes to regarding the bitches as the second-class citizens they are. The whole reduction of women to objects, a collection of body parts, gives you a very clear idea of where the young Master stands on the topic of reproductive choice. And also tells the story of the attitudes Gingrich, Romney and Ryan held at the tender age of 21. The only difference is they’ve climbed high enough on the ladder that they no longer have to rely on blackmailing individuals to satisfy their sick desires to put women in their place.

Don’t know why it’s never occured to me before, but this is just an extension of the Dunning-Kruger Effect that makes people who don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground assume that they’re every bit as competent to say, design a building as the people who put in 5 years of college plus 3 years’ apprenticeship in learning how to design a building (and even then, a lot of them suck at it – witness the floor plan of the average McMansion). They might as well say “No, I’m not trained in urban combat techniques, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!” It never occurs to them that there might be just a little more involved than pointing a gun and squeezing the trigger, because they’re accustomed to approaching every thing – and I mean EVERY thing – from the standpoint that the “experts” are full of shit and don’t know what they’re talking about because anyone can see X, Y and/or Z which proves that they are the sooper-geniuses and every pointy-headed intellectual has had his brain turned to mush by reading too many books. As best illustrated with the ubiquitous “if global warming is real, then why is it snowing in Minnesota in January” type observations.

So of course they’re going to assume that the police have nothing on them when it comes to tracking down and apprehending armed and dangerous criminals. I mean, as long as you’ve got a gun, how hard could that possibly BE?

Maybe he already has been. It would explain quite a lot. Though traumatic brain injury usually doesn’t result in turning a person into a selfish asshole.

“Hey lady who got shot in the head by a wacko with a gun…try being more respectful of the guys who want to make sure wackos can legally buy guns to shoot people in the head, next time.”

If you want to understand bitcoins, read Jonathan Lethem’s Chronic City.

You might not understand them even then, but you will have had the benefit of reading a really good book.

Dear MSNBC, if our kids belong to you, do your kids belong to us too? If so, can we take them hunting after church in our big pickup truck?

Dear Sarah, no to all of the above. We adhere to the very sane policy of not knowingly allowing our children to be in the presence of stupid people with guns.

As someone (Bill Maher?) noted recently, Sarah Palin is a youtube comment brought to life.

…and also, too, my post featured Zombie Jesus…with illustrations!!!

I blogged about this today too, at my shitty little blog.

As I noted, early Christians were maltreated and oppressed by being thrown to the lions; these days, their martyrdom consists of switching over to using a crappy search engine to register their disapproval of a private company missing an opportunity to bolster their cherished beliefs.

For some time now I’ve been saying that my fondest wish was that Palin would not disappear from the public eye before being tempted into really unfortunate plastic surgery.

My wish has been granted. Those are some really obvious cheek implants. Unfortunate, also, too.

Of course it’s a stale topic, but that just underlines the desperation.

The following fact will make you want to open the veins in your wrists: Palin has racked up at least $20 million from her grift over the past 4 years, so it’s doubtful that money has much to do with putting out another “book.” She continues to “write” “books” because she’s an attention whore, not because of the money.

It was probably too tempting to the A Woman Scorned writers to neglect lifting the line, since Betty Broderick’s ex-husband was (conveniently, for the writers) named Dan. Funny – I didn’t know it was recycled from Fatal Attraction. But it works lifted out of either context. I have to prefer the Woman Scorned one because, as cheesy as Fatal Attraction was, Lifetime movies are infinitely cheesier.

HA! Awesome. Appropriate too, since Baxter-Birney more or less channeled Malkin in those scenes where she was out of control with rage.

One suggested edit: replace

I’m not going to BE IGNORED!

with:
“I will not be IGNORED, Dan!”

Someone else used that line here in comments in the last couple of weeks and I alluded to the mixture of pride & shame I felt in knowing its provenance.

It was one of Meredith Baxter-Birney’s lines in the Lifetime Original Movie, A Woman Scorned: The Betty Broderick Story.