A year after railing about the high tax burden on wealthy New Yorkers, Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio talk-show host, is severing one more tie with New York, selling his lushly decorated Fifth Avenue penthouse to an undisclosed buyer.Read the rest here.
Mr. Limbaugh's 10-room condominium, which features a 30-foot-wide living room with fireplace and four terraces overlooking Central Park at East 86th Street, went into contract Thursday for a bit under the final $12.95 million asking price, brokers said.
One broker familiar with the transaction said the final price was about $11.5 million. Mr. Limbaugh paid just under $5 million for the apartment as well as a maid's room and a storage locker, in 1994.
At that price, city officials said that the sale would usually trigger a payment from the seller at the closing of about $325,000 in transfer taxes, including about $164,000 for New York City and $161,000 for New York state to help close the state's huge budget deficit.
Last year when New York state adopted a temporary income-tax surcharge to raise more than $3 billion a year, Mr. Limbaugh said on his radio show that he was going to "get out of New York totally" and sell his Manhattan apartment. A Web transcript of the show is titled "El Rushbo to New York: Drop Dead."
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Rush checks out... and cashes in
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2 comments:
That's what I love about the childless rich, their touching confidence that those of us who struggle to make ends meet and raise families are outraged when they have to cough up some small portion of their multi-million dollar profits from speculation.
A useless transfer tax for a parasitic and bankrupt city government is outrageous whether it has to be paid by Rush Limbaugh or by a person struggling to make ends meet and raise a family.
On the flip side, I remember Warren Buffett weeping great crocodile tears over the fact that his tax rate is lower than his secretary's. Notwithstanding that Mr. Buffett is free to pay as much tax over the minimum as he wants, I don't recall him suggesting that perhaps his secretary's tax rate should be cut.
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