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Claire McCaskill failed to pay taxes on aircraft

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo) failed to pay $287,273 in personal property taxes on a private airplane for the past four years and will immediately repay St. Louis County for back taxes owed.

She’s also planning on selling the plane, which she co-owns with her husband, after POLITICO revealed last week that she had used taxpayer dollars for a political trip around her home state of Missouri. McCaskill had spent $76,000 from her Senate budget on trips on the aircraft over the past four years.

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McCaskill called a Monday press conference after POLITICO asked questions about whether she had paid her personal property taxes on the aircraft.

“I have convinced my husband to sell the damn plane,” McCaskill said on a conference call with reporters. “I will never set foot on the plane again.”

The payment of back taxes and the sale of the aircraft is the latest chapter in what has become an embarrassment and a political problem for McCaskill, who is up for re-election next year in a critical swing state.

McCaskill said there was no effort to evade taxes, noting that she had paid $38,800 in sales taxes on the plane for the past 55 months. But she said she was “disappointed” in herself for not ensuring the property taxes were paid.

“There are people I could blame for this,” she said. “[But] I take full responsibility for the mistake. I shouldn’t have assumed somebody was doing it.”


Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
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