Zguy28 Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 USAToday: Democrat leader reaped $1.1 million from sale of land he didn't own Rest of article here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-11-reid_x.htm?csp=34 By John Solomon And Kathleen Hennessey, Associated Press WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show. In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews. The Nevada Democrat's deal was engineered by Jay Brown, a longtime friend and former casino lawyer whose name surfaced in a major political bribery trial this summer and in other prior organized crime investigations. He's never been charged with wrongdoing — except for a 1981 federal securities complaint that was settled out of court... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceman Spiff Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 Democrats, Republicans...they're all politicians and they're all corrupt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@DCGoldPants Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 ain't that the truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 Congress needs an enima Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tizzod Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 Democrats, Republicans...they're all politicians and they're all corrupt. Exactly what I was going to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PokerPacker Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 Democrats, Republicans...they're all politicians and they're all corrupt. exactly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwbiggs Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 He should be brought up on treason charges. Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 I don't know what the whole story here is, but I read the article and this headline is grossly misleading. Did any of you read the article? Basically, Reid sold real property to a small company in exchange for an ownership interest in the company. Later, the company sold the land, and Reid got some of the profits - because of his ownership interest in the company. That is how a lot of land deals are structured. It may be that Reid did something wrong here in lots of ways - taxes, reporting to Congress, conflict of interest, who knows. They should look into it. But he certainly did not "reap 1.1 million for sale of land he did not own" or anything close to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chomerics Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 I concur with Predicto, the article states that he transferred the land for a share of the company, but continued to pay taxes on it. In otherwords, a "paperless transaction" or one done with a handshake. The land was sold and he got $1.1million out of the deal. It appears as if it was a parcel of land which was adjacent to another parcel, and it was "transferred" to leverage all the land together in order to change the zoning rights. He still paid taxes on the land, and was paid his share once the land was sold. If you want to get Reid on anything, it is not disclosing this on his forms, but it is certainly not for getting $1.1million for land he didn;t own. that is just not the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 How many people are going to read that headline and think that Reid got a 1.1 million dollar bribe or something? Did Karl Rove write that headline? :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarge Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 Listen to you all:laugh: If this had been Hastert or any other Repub, you'd be screaming "Bush/Hitler" "Bad Repubs and Big Business" blah blah blah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 Listen to you all:laugh:If this had been Hastert or any other Repub, you'd be screaming "Bush/Hitler" "Bad Repubs and Big Business" blah blah blah At least I would read the linked article first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted October 11, 2006 Share Posted October 11, 2006 At least I would read the linked article first. Or at least, if I were trying to lie about somebody, not quote the part of the article that describes the perfectly legal thing that happened. Take a tip from AFC: If you're gonna lie, don't quote the part that says you're lieing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonnyRules Posted October 12, 2006 Share Posted October 12, 2006 Democrats, Republicans...they're all politicians and they're all corrupt. I like the way you think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thiebear Posted October 12, 2006 Share Posted October 12, 2006 1. In 2001, Reid sold the land for the same price to a limited liability corporation created by Brown. The senator didn't disclose the sale on his annual public ethics report or tell Congress he had any stake in Brown's company. He continued to report to Congress that he personally owned the land. = 400,000 dollars worth of company? 2. Brown's company sold the land in 2004 to other developers and Reid took $1.1 million of the proceeds, nearly tripling the senator's investment. Reid reported it to Congress as a personal land sale. = 1.5 million total ? And he lied about it to Congress/IRS??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nelms Posted October 12, 2006 Share Posted October 12, 2006 Am I to expect that Reid's resignation is forthcoming? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Gichin13 Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 I do not like Reid, but I am missing this point ... I know the folks can freely transfer assets to/from closely held corporate entities with no tax consequences. He still reported the income. I guess the only question is transparency -- he would not have shown up as record title owner and some legislative or regulatory event involving the LLC could have hypothetically occurred that the public would have the right to know about. That I can see as a criticism here, but it does not seem criminal ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimboDaMan Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 Its deliberately misleading to characterize this as reaping money from land he didn't own. How many of you complaining are upset that Dick Cheney received hundreds of thousands from Haliburton at a time when he didn't even work for them? How many are disgusted that staunch conservatives Sarge and Air Force Cane have been living off the government for years? There's nothing wrong with these things. Right now I cant see anything more than a technical violation of reporting requirements. Now, those requirements are there for a reason, and if it turns out that he disguised these transactions for personal gain I'll be PO'd at him also. But until then, can you believe that millionaire George Bush lives in free government housing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thiebear Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 If he sold it to the corporation for 400k worth of ownership. How did he then get 1.1 million of the 1.6 million dollar deal for the same land sold 3 years later. Without his name ever being listed as part owner of the company he got the 400k for? AND: Not more than a peep out of the non radio media because its close to election time. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-26,GGLG:en&q=harry+reid "Googling Harry Reid brings up 1 editorial from the Washington Post that says it was sloppy at best..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 As I understand it (I'm not exactly a Real Estate expert. In fact, I've never owned any.) this is a fairly common type of deal. You own some land. It's in a location where somebody might want to build a shopping center. If this hypothetical somebody also owns the land of several of your neighbors. A company gets formed for the sole purpose of buying these parcels and combining them into one chunk, so that the one chunk can get sold to the shopping center. The intention is that if the plan works, then the company will be disolved after the sale, and the profits split up, and if they can't get everybody to sell to the company, then the company just dies and the property goes back to the original owners. However, it may take 10 years for the company to buy everybody's property, and it may be several years after that to sell the big chunk, if at all. And when the owners sell their land to the company, there's paperwork, fees, and taxes. In addition, it's not uncommon, here in Florida, for there to be a situation where your land may be worth a million dollars to a shopping center, but it's listed on the property tax rolls as being worth 200K. And under Florida law, the assessment can only go up 3% (or some such) per year unless it's sold. If you sell it to the company, then the company (which you are a part owner of) has to immediatly start paying property taxes on a million dollars. But if you simply don't file the paperwork at the courthouse, then you, personally, can keep paying taxes on 200K. (There may be other reasons to keep the deal quiet, too. Here in Florida, one of the things Real Estate speculators like to do to dodge taxes is to claim to be a farm. Lots of laws on the books designed to shield farmers from having the family farm taxed out from under them. So if you're a real estate speculator who owns a chunk of land that you think is going to be a subdivision or a shopping center 10-20 years from now, you put 10 cows on it, and pay some guy who actually knows which end of a cow is the front to check on 'em once a month, and you're a 'farmer'. I can think of several places here near me where there's a 'farm', completely surrounded by subdivisions. I'd bet you a big chunk of money that the owner of that 'farm' isn;t a farmer, he's a real estate developer, and if you were to go to him and offer him 10 times what the property's assessed at, he'd laugh in your face.) In short, I'd bet that this "sell the land to a company, get part ownership in the company in return, and don't file the paperwork on the sale" deal is a very common real estate transaction. And it's done for the purpose of dodging property taxes. ----- I'm not saying that this type of transaction, I'd bet, is common somehow makes it right. It's tax fraud. (It's just not federal tax fraud.) And I don't see any reason to jump to the conclusion that there's any politics involved in it. I don't see anything that makes me think that his Congressional status affected things in any way. (It might have, I just don't see anything that says so.) It doesn't say he's a crooked politician, it just says he's a crooked real estate speculator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zguy28 Posted October 13, 2006 Author Share Posted October 13, 2006 Or at least, if I were trying to lie about somebody, not quote the part of the article that describes the perfectly legal thing that happened. Take a tip from AFC: If you're gonna lie, don't quote the part that says you're lieing. Larry, are you calling me a liar? Or the USAToday? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 Larry, are you calling me a liar? Or the USAToday? Democrat leader reaped $1.1 million from sale of land he didn't ownWASHINGTON — Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show. In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews. Given that the headline (and the title of the thread) contains the phrase "land he didn't own", and the article (and the part you quoted) says that he owned the company that owned the land, I'd say "Yep" to both questions. (Although you, granted, have the defense that the rules of the forum require you to quote the lieing headline.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zguy28 Posted October 13, 2006 Author Share Posted October 13, 2006 Given that the headline (and the title of the thread) contains the phrase "land he didn't own", and the article (and the part you quoted) says that he owned the company that owned the land, I'd say "Yep" to both questions. (Although you, granted, have the defense that the rules of the forum require you to quote the lieing headline.)I don't write it, only report it. The bad news for Mr. Reid I think, is that he is now linked to organized crime and bribery. Even if the charges were never proved against his friend, we all know how the court of public opinion works for politicians. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thiebear Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 Given that the headline (and the title of the thread) contains the phrase "land he didn't own", and the article (and the part you quoted) says that he owned the company that owned the land, I'd say "Yep" to both questions. (Although you, granted, have the defense that the rules of the forum require you to quote the lieing headline.) He sold the land to the company to become part owner: Receiving 400k worth of the company: Technically that means he sold it to someone else. He then got 1.1. million of the 1.6 million in the deal later while maintaining the 400k worth+ of the company still.. thats a neat trick... The part about getting a company together to buy all the parcels of land: He and the lawyer guy owned the 1 and 1/2 parcels together to begin with = no timeframe needed. Other than the fact they changed it from private to commercial - even against the committee members on the board saying it shouldnt be.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chomerics Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 If he sold it to the corporation for 400k worth of ownership.How did he then get 1.1 million of the 1.6 million dollar deal for the same land sold 3 years later. Without his name ever being listed as part owner of the company he got the 400k for? bear, he TRANSFERRED the ownership to a LLC, it is COMMON practice to do this, and it is not even illegal. Not more than a peep out of the non radio media because its close to election time. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-26,GGLG:en&q=harry+reid "Googling Harry Reid brings up 1 editorial from the Washington Post that says it was sloppy at best..." Which is what it was, there was NOTHING illegal about what he did, and he in fact did what the common course of action is in this case ACCORDING TO THE IRS!!! here, this is from a tax attorny. . . FYI, I am a tax attorney. A single member LLC (i.e. an LLC owned 100% by a single person) is treated by the IRS as non-existent for tax purposes. The LLC owner continues to treat himself as the direct owner of the property for tax purposes as if the property were never transferred to the LLC. That could explain why someone might continue to consider himself the owner of property which he has transferred to a single member LLC.A multiple member LLC is treated as a partnership for tax purposes. Again, if an existing partnership transfers property to an LLC owned by the same partners in the same percentages, the LLC will usually be treated as the same entity as the orignal partnership, and again an individual might reasonably believe that no transfer has taken place. Case closed, and the WP got it right, sloppy at best. . . Now if you want to throw stones, how about all of these people. . . New Report Shows Taylor's Earmarks Benefit Land he Owns. According to a new report by the Wall Street Journal, Charles Taylor, a wealthy businessman and banker, was able to get millions of dollars in earmarks for his district to improve land where Taylor owns thousands of acres and where he has even developed. The report shows that Taylor owns at least 14,000 acres of prime land in his district, some of which is near the main highway in Maggie Valley which, last year, received $11.4 million in federal dollars. Taylor's companies own thousands of acres near the highway and had already developed a subdivision called Maggie Valley Leisure Estates. Another earmark last year sent $4.8 million to widen a highway through timber tracts that Taylor's companies own. He also got millions for a loan for long-time contributors and millions more for improvements to a park that sits directly in front of his flagship bank in the district.House Speaker Dennis Hastert denied Thursday that he pushed for federal funding for a proposed highway in northeastern Illinois so he and his wife could reap about $1.8 million from land deals near their home in Kendall County. The Sunlight Foundation, a newly created group whose declared aim is to inform the public about what members of Congress do, has accused Hastert of not divulging connections between the $207 million earmark he won for a highway, the Prairie Parkway, and an investment he and his wife made in nearby land. BTW, the AP article was from the same hack that tried to blame Reid for taking boxing seats when he was on the commission for boxing regulation. . . BUT NEGLECTED TO MENTION HE VOTED AGAINST THE PEOPLE WHO GAVE HIM THE SEATS!!!! More on Soloman. . . It seems AP's John Solomon has a history of writing anti-Democrat hit pieces that don't really hold water:1. John Solomon's AP story about Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan leaves out key information. From Media Matters: A November 29 Associated Press article by John Solomon and Sharon Theimer omitted a key claim by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) that could undermine allegations that he received a political contribution arranged by lobbyist Jack Abramoff "shortly after" writing a letter in support of a tribal school program that would benefit the American Indian tribes that Abramoff represented. 2. John Solomon's February AP story attacking Harry Reid was exposed as having unfairly slanted the story by not noting the not-insignificant fact that Harry Reid never took any action on behalf of the folks who AP claims bought him. This time from Josh Marshall: In this case, despite the AP story's narrative of lobbyist contacts, there doesn't seem to be any evidence whatsoever that Reid ever took any action on behalf of Abramoff's Marianas clients. Wasn't that worth a mention? 3. After being shown to have written a sloppy story attacking Harry Reid (point 2 above), AP's John Solomon writes a third story again refusing to include key information favorable to Reid. More from Josh Marshall: Nowhere in the new article can the AP writers bring themselves to note that Reid never adopted Abramoff's clients' position on the issue. So whatever quids Abramoff's folks were offering up, Reid never gave them a quo. From start to finish he was the co-sponsor of the bill Abramoff's clients wanted to defeat. That's key information -- arguably, the central piece of information in the whole case. But the AP keeps pressing their misleading narrative while omitting this key point. This is a good example of what happens when getting (or in this case, not losing the story) becomes more important than getting the story right. http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/three-more-ap-john-solomon-articles.html So come on and stop the BS bear, it is nothing more then a ruse to get the wolves all in a hussy about the "supposed" liberal media, and you are following right along hook line and sinker. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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