Comments on: Reid’s $1.1 million windfall

By: DosPeros

DosPeros — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:10:22 +0000

It still isn’t as titillating as buggering a boy-page, but you take what you can get….

By: DosPeros

DosPeros — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:07:55 +0000

They also said they have no documents proving Reid’s stake in the company because it was an informal understanding between friends.

That ain’t normal, to say the least. Mr. Reid & Mr. Brown need to cough up the operating agreement of this Patrick Lane LLC forthwith, as well as a list of all members and investors.

So what exactly is the deal here: was 1.1 million gifted to Reid? Well that certainly would have some nice tax advantages.

“There were several legal steps associated with the investment during those years that did not alter Senator Reid’s actual ownership interest in the land.”

WHAT? Was the property transfered to the LLC or not? Either one owns a peice of property or they don’t. Was he member of the LLC, was he not a member, did he own the land or did the LLC own the land? These are simple questions that should be answered.

January 1998 in a proposed subdivision created partly with federal lands transferred by the Interior Department to private developers.

NICE. God I wish I was in Congress.

For years, Reid also had been encouraging Interior to make land swaps on behalf of Del Webb, where one of his former aides worked.

REALLY NICE. Oh but wait, baby…

Reid collected $18,000 in political donations from Del Webb’s political action committee and employees.

HEY, ONE OF YOU BRILLIANT LIBERALS, PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME HOW A LLC IS ETHICALLY SUPERIOR TO A LAND TRUST.

By: Alan Stewart Carl

Alan Stewart Carl — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 16:06:40 +0000

I do a lot of work in real estate. There’s all KINDS of ways to move property around, invest in property and earn profit from property that can seem a bit curious to the outsider but which are all completely legal. I don’t know the details of Reid’s deal, but it seems pretty benign.

By: sleipner

sleipner — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 07:03:21 +0000

More accurately, trying to come up with whatever Democratic scandal they can find to try to splash the Democrats with the effluvia of the massive set of Republican scandals going on right now.

By: conservative republican

conservative republican — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 03:16:10 +0000

The neocon repugs and the american propaganda machine-AP- trying to grab air.

By: rob

rob — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 01:59:13 +0000

from John in DC @ AmericaBlog:
Harry Reid bought some land in the late 90s, and over a several year period tripled his investment. Okay. Most everyone I know, other than me, did the same over that period. Still, AP calls this a “windfall.” Apparently, the AP has been asleep the past ten years while land prices have soared. Anyway, Harry Reid transferred his land to an LLC, in which he was still a party, and when time came to sell the LLC, they gave Reid his portion of the return on the land and also gave him back the value of his initial investment (i.e., the value of the land itself when he gave it to the LLC).

You still with me?

Now, you’d think perhaps the AP caught Harry Reid not reporting his holdings to the Senate Ethics Committee? No, he did it. How about not reporting the land sale and his profits to the Ethics Committee? No, he did that too. So what did Harry Reid do wrong? He didn’t tell the Ethics Committee he transferred the land to an LLC whi he was still a party in – though he did report to the committee that he still owned the land, which was true. Why does that detail matter? Got me. You’ll have to read a four page AP story to try to figure that one out.

The other “I gotcha” from the AP? They didn’t like the way Reid paid his property taxes.

Wow, so you would assume AP got a great juicy quote from George Bush’s IRS about how bad a thing Reid really did with his taxes? Not quite. Here’s how the IRS characterized the payments:
Brand said the IRS might view the handling of the land taxes as undisclosed income to Reid but it was unlikely to prompt an investigation. “If someone is paying a liability you owe, there may be some income imputed. But at that level, it’s pretty small dollars,” he said.
This is the same IRS that harasses liberal churches for sport. But they don’t think they’ve got enough to go after the minority leader of the opposition political party.

John Solomon is obsessed with Harry Reid. It’s kind of creepy.

By: Mike Koenecke

Mike Koenecke — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 00:13:05 +0000

It is pointed out on Glenn Reynolds’s site that this could be completely innocent: a transfer of property to an LLC, with Reid recognizing the gain later upon the sale by the LLC. Though I disagree with just about everything Mr. Reid stands for politically, I doubt this will be anything like the Jefferson case.