Watch: 'Shark Tank' Star Shreds New 'Mansion Tax', Reveals Where She Thinks the Rich Will Move
Death from taxes. That’s what could happen to Los Angeles if the wealthy flee or stay away from the city due to a “mansion tax.” Many will look to greener pastures — dollar green.
“Shark Tank” star Barbara Corcoran agrees. TMZ caught up with the real estate mogul in New York City. “People hate to pay taxes on entrances or exits to their homes,” she told the entertainment news outlet. “They feel like they’re hit upon, taken advantage of.”
Last November, voters passed Measure ULA, which levies a 4-percent tax on homes selling for $5 million or more. It also imposes a 5.5 percent tax on properties that sell for over $10 million, according to the New York Times. The tax goes into effect today — April Fool’s Day.
The monies garnered from the tax are supposed to fund affordable housing in L.A. and help to help alleviate the city’s homeless crisis, according to TMZ. The aptly nicknamed “mansion tax” is projected by some to bring in $1 billion annually. How will those projections be met if a slew of wealthy home seekers shies away from the city to avoid the tax? Nobody wants to be a prisoner in their own home.
Corcoran agrees. “The mansion tax is going to give people more motivation for not moving out or moving in.” Escaping L.A. will be tougher and tougher for the wealthy, and those wanting to avoid a self-imposed prison sentence due to a tax burden will avoid the city like the plague.
It’s not that Corcoran is against helping the homeless; just the opposite. She thinks an affordable housing fund is “more than fair” because “it’s the obligation of people with money to pay for people who don’t have money.”
“But a mansion tax is the wrong way to do this,” Corcoran continued, “it sends tax revenue out of the state. Nobody benefits in the end.” The housing market will be paralyzed and wealthy people will not look to L.A. for a home. They will look to cities and states with more favorable tax laws. Corcoran said she believes many will opt for southern states instead of paradise lost — California.
They should have seen it coming. Beware the ides of March. Last month, wealthy home sellers were cutting prices and making last-minute deals in L.A., trying to beat the clock and unload their properties before the mansion tax kicked in, according to the Times.
The selling frenzy saw luxury brokers like Josh Altman, a regular presence on Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing,” offering agents a $1 million bonus if they brought a buyer in before April 1 for a seven-bedroom Bel Air estate priced at nearly $28 million. It’s no wonder. The mansion tax has to be paid by the seller.
L.A. is Crazy Town. But it’s not just L.A.
At former President Donald Trump’s recent campaign rally in Waco, Texas, rock legend Ted Nugent kicked off the show with an electric guitar rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner,” according to Newsweek. Some might go so far as to claim it rivaled Jimi Hendrix‘s iconic performance of the same tune at Woodstock in 1969.
Same song, different world views. Hendrix, it is safe to say, was no conservative. Nugent is. He added a few choice words between guitar riffs. “I am a guitar player, I have a couple of demands. Secure my border. I have a couple of really good ideas: give me my tax dollars back. I didn’t authorize killing babies at Planned Parenthood … I want my money back.” Needless to say, the pro-Trump crowd cheered.
Nugent also had some colorful words for the Ukraine war and President Zelenskyy, but I digress. The point is, Nugent is right to demand his tax money back. Taxes are spent on crazy things that many taxpayers find wasteful and repulsive.
For example, scientists from Stanford University spent almost $7 million in funds to construct an artificially intelligent toilet system to study health, according to the New York Post. The researchers say your butt has an individually identifiable “analprint.” The scientists admitted that “[t]o fully reap the benefits of the smart toilet, users must make their peace with a camera that scans their anus.”
And there was some pretty nutty stuff tucked away in the McConnell-Schumer omnibus spending bill. According to the Daily Signal, $575 million was slated for a global health section that allocated funds for “family planning/reproductive health, including in areas where population growth threatens biodiversity or endangered species.” In other words, the plebes are the enemy of the world, and the elites must stop them from breeding.
That’s just the edge of the quagmire. The omnibus bill also included:
$1.5 million to encourage people to eat outdoors in sunny Pasadena, California.
$1.1 million for a solar array in cloudy Kirkland, Washington.
$2 million for B360, a group that promotes dirt-bike culture in Baltimore.
$3 million for the tiny and remote island of St. George, Alaska, for water infrastructure and $2.5 million for harbor improvements, for a total cost of over $82,000 per resident.
$500,000 for a skate park in Rhode Island.
$4.8 million for an environmental impact report on the possible expansion of Chicago’s rail transit system. Bureaucracy at work.
$13 million to expand the airport in the tiny city of Abbeville, Alabama.
$4 million for “Soy-Enabled Rural Road Reconstruction” in Iowa.
$2.35 million for the Leahy Center in Vermont, named after state’s Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy. The member who requested the earmark? Sen. Patrick Leahy.
Funding for a wide array of woke organizations and left-wing activists.
It’s not just L.A. The craziness is spreading from state to state and city to city.
Ted Nugent was right. Your government — local, state and federal — is spending your tax dollars willy-nilly. Are you being represented by your government officials? Or is it all just a tale told by idiots?
In California, taxes such as the mansion tax are scaring away the wealthy. How does scaring away wealth benefit the poor? It doesn’t add up.
Corcoran was right when she told the TMZ reporter the mansion tax is “not good for the country.” Far too many of our politicians are taking advantage of us, rich or not.
Something’s got to give.
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