Senator John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, was sure to point out to me on Thursday that the “Isabel,” his 76-foot $7 million luxury yacht docked in Rhode Island, is actually not a yacht, but simply “my sailboat.”
Mr. Kerry took heat for mooring his boat outside of his home state at a Rhode Island marina, because, according to a report from the Boston Herald, it enabled him to avoid paying about $440,000 in Massachusetts sales taxes and $70,000 in annual excise taxes. Political observers in the media were quick to point to Rhode Island’s 1993 repeal of taxes on the sale and use of yachts.
On Tuesday night, Mr. Kerry’s office released a statement remarking that he would pay the full amount he owes to the state of Massachusetts.
“There’s no issues. Everything is resolved. There is no question,” he said to me when I asked if the tax situation with his boat had been taken care of.
