As governor of Maine for two terms until 2019, Paul LePage, a Republican, earned a reputation as one of the least filtered politicians of the pre-Trump era.
He said he wanted to tell President Barack Obama to “go to hell” and told the NAACP to “kiss my ass.” He made racist comments about drug dealers who allegedly traveled to Maine and “impregnated a young white girl before leaving.”
Now making a comeback bid against his successor, Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat, Mr. LePage is focusing heavily in his campaign on a push to phase out Maine’s income tax. He argues the change is necessary to prevent wealthy residents from moving to Florida just long enough each year to take advantage of Sunshine State tax breaks.
But Mr. LePage and his wife, Ann LePage, who have owned property in Florida for more than a decade, themselves benefited from that state’s tax laws while living in the Maine governor’s mansion, and then again. that he was campaigning to get back to work. From 2009 to 2015, as well as from 2018 until the end of this year, the couple received property tax breaks reserved for permanent residents of Florida, according to public records.
The properties in question, both in Ormond Beach, Fla., are a home the LePages bought in 2008 and sold in 2017, and another they bought in 2018 and still own. For both homes, the couple applied for and received what’s called a Homestead Exemption, which is supposed to apply only to primary residences in Florida.
The amount the couple have saved over the years is relatively small: just over $8,500, according to a New York Times public records analysis.
But it’s not the first time the LePages have come under scrutiny over such a tax matter — in 2010, Florida officials fined Ms LePage $1,400 before quashing Sanction — and Mr. LePage’s focus on taxes in the current gubernatorial campaign could open it up. attacks from the Democrats.
Mr LePage’s campaign defended the tax measures, saying Mrs LePage’s mother used the Florida home as her primary residence from 2009 until her death in 2015, when the couple removed the first homestead exemption. Ms. LePage’s mother had scleroderma, a chronic disease that causes hardening of the skin.
“Mrs. LePage’s mother was visiting Augusta, but due to her condition she spent a great deal of time, especially during the cooler periods of fall, winter and spring, at this permanent residence” in Florida , said Brent Littlefield, spokesperson for Mr. LePage’s campaign. LePage also traveled there during the winter months to care for her. His mother kept it as her main residence during her lifetime.
The campaign has not commented on the second exemption held from 2018 to this year. Attempts to contact Ms. LePage directly were unsuccessful.
At campaign events, Mr LePage spoke about the couple’s Florida home and criticized a Maine law requiring residents who split their time between the two states – so-called snowbirds – to spend at least 183 days , a little over half an hour. year in Florida to pay the state’s reduced tax burden.
“We’re going down to Naples, Florida to raise funds from Mainers because that’s where all the money is – and it’s unfortunate they have to go for six months and a day,” said Mr. LePage in Bangor last month. “I have no problem going to Florida. We’re going to Florida, we have a house in Florida, but it’s for January and February, not six months and a day. It is unfortunate that we have this crazy tax and that is what is happening.
But while Mr. LePage said he and his wife were only in Florida a few months a year, they painted a different picture for Florida tax collectors over the years.
During his final months as governor, Mr LePage told reporters in November 2018 that he had a home in Florida and planned to move there because the state had no income tax . But by then, records show, he and his wife had already applied for a property exemption on their Ormond Beach property – stating that Florida had been the main residence of the governor and first lady of Maine since March 2018. , when they bought the house.
That claim meant the four-bedroom home, about 15 minutes from the Atlantic Ocean, was eligible for a Florida homestead exemption, which reduces the assessed value of qualifying primary residences in the state by $50,000.
After leaving office in 2019 due to Maine’s ban on serving a third consecutive term, Mr. LePage obtained a Florida driver’s license and registered to vote in the state. Then in February 2020 he said he was considering running for a third term, and when he announced his run last year he cited criticism of Ms Mills’ response to the pandemic. He brought his voter registration back to Maine in 2020 and posted photos of himself putting Maine license plates back on his car.
The couple have rented a home in Edgecomb, Maine since 2020, and Mr. LePage has been campaigning in the state for much of the past year. But it wasn’t until last June that Ann LePage informed a real estate appraiser in Florida that she and her husband were no longer residents of that state, according to the county appraiser’s office. The tax relief will remain in effect until the end of this year, according to an official with the Flagler County, Fla., Assessor’s Office who handled the case.
Jon Alper, a Florida attorney who specializes in asset protection, said the circumstances of the LePages’ homestead exemption claims were “certainly atypical.”
“It’s possible under the law, but generally if one spouse is in the house, they’re both in the house,” he said.
The LePages struggled with tax issues while switching between the two states for more than a decade.
In 2008, when Mr. LePage was mayor of Waterville, Maine, his wife bought a house in Ormond Beach, not far from the house they would buy a decade later in the same town. She claimed the Florida Homestead Exemption even though she was also claiming a Homestead Exemption on a home she owned in Waterville. Both states require homeowners to certify that a property is their primary residence in order to qualify for the exemption.
This misstep was reported in 2010, during Mr. LePage’s first campaign for governor. Florida tax authorities initially fined Ms. LePage $1,400 for misleading them about her residency status in the state, but they withdrew the penalty shortly thereafter, citing an explanation from Ms. LePage that his mother, Rita DeRosby, lived in the house. A rarely used provision in the Florida tax code allows owners to claim a property exemption if a dependent resides on the property.
Months after Ms LePage was cleared of any wrongdoing, Ms DeRosby joined the family’s move to the Maine governor’s mansion, according to local reports. When Ms DeRosby died in 2015, her obituary said she had “spent the last eight years of her life residing” with her daughter and Mr LePage.
Mr. LePage’s campaign proposal to eliminate Maine’s state income tax has drawn criticism from some Democratic officials that local governments would be forced to raise property taxes to offset the costs.
While governor, Mr. LePage tried to eliminate Maine’s homestead exemption, a proposal that would have deprived about 213,000 Mainers of benefits similar to those he enjoyed in Florida, according to a Maine analysis Center for Economic Policy, from left.