Ellison gets $3million for sod all
His estate is too big
DAFT TAX MEN in the US have taken pity on Oracle boss Larry Ellison and given him a $3 million tax break because is huge estate is a waste of space.
Ellison, who is one of the 12 richest people in the world, managed to convince the tax people that the estate in Woodside is 'functionally obsolete'.
He has managed to trouser the cash which would otherwise have ended up funding schools in San Mateo County and the council is understandably miffed about it.
Ellison spent nine years constructing the estate which is modelled on a Japanese emperor's 16th-century country pad.
Tax men allowed the exemption based on the fact that it should have cost $166.3 million to build. In fact, after shedloads of delays, it ended up costing poor Larry $200 million. Now he claims it is only worth $60 million because there is currently a limited market for Japanese white elephants. µ
L'Inq
Comments
Suppressed majority
Of course this article will appeal to the suppressed under dogs leeching off your style.Otherwise one could have given it a spin that Ellison managed to pull one on the damn tax people; prevents them from equiping more troops to kill innocent civilians overseas and still contributed a lot to the local economy by setting up this project to start with. Hey - but nothing beats bashing a successful enterpreneur if one isn't good for any constructive contribution to society.
@Suppressed majority
Not that I hate introducing reality to your flame fest, but these are local taxes. No troops will be harmed in their paying.Naughty Larry Ellison has a yen for wood...
"Japanese-style imperial villa that includes 500 mature cherry, maple, ginkgo 1000 redwoods and other trees." Great Sequoia! It's huge! Is he really compensating for his martial art? Here's a White Elephant that smells like sushi fishbones! $USD 3 million not a lot in sterling. "8,000-square-foot main house with two wings, a guest home, three cottages and a gymnasium as well as a 5-acre man-made lake, two waterfalls and two bridges." I'm not buying the limited use Feng-shua put over on the oppressed proletariat who is taking halfcut in buying power!Build me a pagoda where the bullish don't rome [sic].
http://www.forbes.com/2003/09/18/cx_bs_0918home400.html
"Warren Buffett--with a net worth of $36 billion--famously lives in the same home in Omaha, Nebr., that he bought in 1958 for $31,500." Skin-flint disinherited his heirs. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad white elephant cow world.
Oi! I suppose I deserve suppressing during my depression.
Property tax only funds municipal projects,...
At least this is how the system works in North America. Municipal or City governments raise taxes for schools, roads, garbage collection, etc. The military is Federal.