Ex-GOP figure faces $81,000 bill in yacht tax
Jack E. Robinson, the one-time Republican candidate who once declared ''tax avoidance is perfectly legal," has failed in his attempt to avoid paying $20,000 in sales tax on his 49-foot luxury yacht, and it will cost him dearly.
Robinson, who two years ago led an unsuccessful campaign to abolish the auto excise tax in Massachusetts, now faces a bill that has quadrupled to $81,000, as a result of a ruling by the state's Appellate Tax Board, along with penalties, interest, and fees.
In a decision rendered this month, the tax board rejected Robinson's argument that the $400,000 yacht that he purchased in early 2000 was exempt from Massachusetts sales tax because he was planning to berth it at a mooring in Newport, R.I. Robinson did not return calls to his law office last week and yesterday.
Robinson had signed a sworn statement dated Sept. 9, 2000, that said the boat was delivered to him in Newport. But the tax board found that the boat never left Massachusetts. The boat, a French-built Beneteau 50 that he named Excalibur, was housed the entire eight months that he owned it at a Cape Cod marina, according to the tax board.
Robinson, facing losses in the stock market at the time, put the Excalibur up for sale within months of the purchase. It was sold in late summer 2000 for $365,000.
Over the years, Robinson has given various reasons for selling his yacht without ever having used it. When he was running against US Senator Edward M. Kennedy in 2000, he said he did not have time to enjoy it. But an employee at the marina testified that Robinson said his ''image committee" in the campaign had advised him to get rid of the luxury vessel because it was a political liability. The tax board found that he ''was 'desperate' to find a buyer, given reverses in the stock market."
His failure to pay the sales tax prompted a Department of Revenue investigation. In an interview with the Globe in 2002, Robinson talked openly about seeking to avoid the sales tax by mooring the yacht in Newport.
''Tax avoidance is perfectly legal," Robinson said in the June 2002 interview. ''It's every citizen's right to take advantage of it. Why keep a boat where there's a sales tax? I prefer to keep it where there is no sales tax."
He had insisted in the interview that the boat had been delivered to a Rhode Island mooring, but would not produce evidence to the Globe demonstrating that the vessel was there or where else it was moored.
Robinson, whose family has strong roots in the state's Republican Party, emerged as a potentially hot GOP prospect for public office in 2000, but reports about his personal problems and scrapes with the law scared away party leaders.
A former girlfriend accused him of sexually assaulting her in 1998. He was arrested in 1985 on charges of drunk driving and carrying a martial arts weapon. Charges were dropped, but the disclosures in 2000 damaged his candidacy. Robinson, who now practices law in Connecticut, never mounted a serious campaign against Kennedy.
Two years later, he was the GOP nominee for secretary of state, a race he lost badly. He tried in 2003 to marshal support for a ballot petition to do away with the auto excise tax, but failed to collect enough signatures.
