Maine Democrats are reacting to a report in the New York Times report today that found Paul LePage claimed he was a resident of Florida while serving as Governor of Maine in order to qualify for a property tax break on his Florida property.
The Times reports that LePage is still receiving the tax break “reserved for permanent Florida residents” while running for a third term as governor of Maine and that while he is campaigning across Maine telling Maine people that “he and his wife were in Florida for only a couple of months a year, they have painted a different picture of Florida’s tax collectors over the years.”
The LePage campaign “did not comment on the second exemption held from 2018 through this year.”
The story also notes that “while he was governor, Mr. LePage tried to eliminate the homestead exemption, a proposal that would have denied an estimated 213,000 Mainers benefits similar to those he enjoyed in Florida.”
“This revelation is a slap in the face to people across Maine. That a sitting governor would claim another state as their home in order to cheat themselves into a tax break they are still benefiting from is bad enough – but to do it after driving up property taxes on the very people he was supposed to serve is unconscionable,” said Drew Gattine, Chair of the Maine Democratic Party. “It could not be more clear how little respect Paul LePage has for our state and for our hardworking people.”
According to the New York Times, LePage has “benefitted from that state’s [Florida’s] tax laws while living in the Maine governor’s mansion, and again as he campaigns to return to the job.” The property tax breaks are “reserved for permanent Florida residents”.
“In his final months as governor, Mr. LePage told reporters in November 2018 that he had a home in Florida and planned to move there because the state had no income tax,” the New York Times reports. “But by that time, records show, he and his wife had already claimed a homestead exemption on their Ormond Beach property — indicating that Florida had been the primary residence of Maine’s governor and first lady since March 2018, when they bought the home.”