Sen. Kerry to pay $500K tax on yacht

Stew Milne/AP

Isabel, the yacht sailing through a storm of controversy.

By Donovan Slack, Globe Staff

Senator John Kerry said today he will voluntarily cut a check to the state of Massachusetts for some $500,000 in sales tax for a yacht he purchased in Rhode Island earlier this year.

"We’ve reached out to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue and made clear that, whether owed or not, we intend to pay the equivalent taxes as if the boat’s home-port were currently in Massachusetts," Kerry said in a statement released this afternoon. "That payment is being made promptly."

Kerry has been dogged by questions in recent days by questions about whether he purposely tried to evade taxes in his home state by listing the $7 million yacht's home berth as Newport, R.I., when he actually intended to use the boat at his summer home on Nantucket. His yacht purchase was first reported in the Boston Herald.

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.