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This story needs to be FReeped. Let's keep up the pressure.

Jeff Gannon newstips@talonews.com

In Re: Talon news stories on Daschle's DC Tax Exemption

Talon News tells the sorry tale of Sen Daschle's Kafkaesque metamorphosis from a down-home South Dakotan to an ultra-liberal lord of a $1.9 million Washington mansion who does not even pay his fair share of property taxes.

Talon News reports that the District of Columbia Office of Tax and Revenue (OTR) is investigating whether Sen Daschle is actually entitled to a property tax exemption he claimed on the $1.9 million Washington mansion he and his wife purchased in 2003, and that Sen Daschle declared on official documents filed with OTR that the District mansion was his "principal place of residence."

At issue is the homestead exemption, a property tax credit limited to owner-occupants who declare their homes to be their "primary residence."

The affidavit filed with OTR that bears the senator's signature makes that claim. A flurry of activity began on September 29, 2004 when Talon News filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the executed application. That same day, Carl Piggott, an OTR auditor rescinded the homestead exemption---possibly at Sen Daschle's direction. The following day, the OTR legal staff reinstated the credit.

A Talon News source reported that OTR faxed a letter
to Daschle's Washington office on Monday asking that a new application be executed. The details of the activities that ensued beginning September 29 have not yet been revealed, but Doug Schauss, a spokesman for the OTR told Talon News that the matter was "under review with the legal staff" and that a "resolution was expected soon."

These puzzling circumstances suggest Sen Daschle has something to hide.

First Sen Daschle claims he did, and then he says he didn’t, apply for a tax exemption. He can't have it both ways. South Dakotans should ask themselves, “ If Sen Daschle lied to you about this issue, what else has he lied to you about?"