THE CABANAS ARE BETTER IN RI:

Kerry docks yacht in R.I., avoids $500K in Mass. taxes (AP, 7/24/10)

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is docking his family's new $7 million yacht in neighboring Rhode Island, allowing him to avoid paying roughly $500,000 in taxes to his cash-strapped home state.

If the Isabel were kept at the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee's summer vacation home on Nantucket or in Boston Harbor near his city residence, he would be liable for $437,500 in one-time sales tax. He would also have to pay $70,000 in annual excise taxes.

Rhode Island repealed those taxes in 1993. That has made the state something of a nautical tax haven.

The national consumption tax would take care of that.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 25, 2010 7:48 AM