The Sandwich Democratic Town Committee

There seems to be a bit of “déjà vu all over again” happening with U.S. Senate Republican candidate Gabriel Gomez and his exploitation of the tax code. According to a piece in the Boston Globe on Thursday (May 16^th) under the headline “Gomez failed to pay, appraiser says” the newspaper revealed that Mr. Gomez had sought and received a special tax break associated with historic preservation of homes or parts of homes.

In this case, Mr. Gomez had sought in 2005 a charitable deduction of over $280,000 associated with granting the National Architectural Trust rights to preserving the façade of his home. The Gómezes were granted the deduction but, according to the Globe report:

In 2011, federal prosecutors, citing findings by the Internal Revenue Service, said the National Architectural Trust had arranged for “unwarranted” claims by homeowners for huge deductions. The Department of Justice obtained a court injunction against some of the Trust’s practices.

As far back as early 2005, the IRS had listed preservation agreements such as the one the Gómezes signed with the trust as one of its ‘Dirty Dozen tax scams.”

While this particular arrangement was not challenged by the IRS it does seem a little manipulative of the tax code given that the town where the property is located had existing laws prohibiting alterations to the façade of historic properties like the one Gomez owns. To date Mr. Gomez has refused to release his 2005 federal returns, the year when he took the deduction. Sound familiar?

Just to make matters a little worse the main focus of the Globe story was on Mr. Gomez’s subsequent refusal to pay the fee of an appraiser he had hired to establish the value of the home’s façade. The fee was $1000 but Mr. Gomez refused to pay it because he did not like the valuation the appraiser had reported. Mr. Gomez hired another appraiser who came back with an assessment that was nearly $40,000 more than the first one. Who knew that you can refuse to pay for an appraisal because you don’t like the results?

Who knew that you could get a tax break for agreeing not to do what the law already prohibits you from doing? Mr. Gomez apparently did. Upon closer examination the otherwise compelling life story that Mr. Gomez has to offer  voters may turn out to have more than a few cracks in its own façade.