Watch: Maddow on C-Street (Interview w Jeff Sharlet on C-Street losing Tax Exempt Status) [View All]

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Watch: Maddow On C Street
Zachary Roth | November 18, 2009, 9:30AM

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow picked up our report -- with credit -- on the C Street house losing its tax exempt status last night.

She tied residents of the Christian house to the effort to stop health-care reform, and interviewed Jeff Sharlet, the author of a book on the shadowy religious group that owns the house.

Watch!

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/watch_maddow_on_c_street.php

HERE IS MUCK'S EARLIER COVERAGE:

C Street House No Longer Tax Exempt
Zachary Roth | November 17, 2009, 1:40PM



Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC)

Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a loophole that had allowed the house's owners to avoid paying property taxes.

Previously, the house -- despite being home to numerous lawmakers -- had been tax exempt, because it was classified as a church. That arrangement had allowed the building's owner, the secretive international Christian organization The Family, to charge significantly below market rents to its residents. In recent year, Senators John Ensign (R-NV), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Reps. Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) have all reportedly called C Street home.

Natalie Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Office of Tax and Revenue for Washington D.C., told TPMmuckraker that her office inspected the house this summer. "It was determined that portions of it were being rented out for private residential purposes," she said. As a result, the tax exempt status was partially revoked. Sixty-six percent of the value of the property is now subject to taxation.

According to online records, the total taxable assessment is $1,834,500. The building's owner last month paid taxes of $1714.70 on the property.

A commenter using the name Vince Treacy, posting on a blog run by George Washington Law professor Jonathan Turley, noted in June that the property enjoyed tax exempt status. In a comment yesterday, he wrote:
Well, at least one complaint just happened to be filed a few months ago, by some anonymous citizen who will remain nameless ""wink, wink," with the taxpayer hotline at the DC tax office.

-snip

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/11/c_street_house_no_longer_tax_exempt.php

NOTE: COMMENTS ARE INTERESTING TO THOSE FOLLOWING THIS STORY. JEFF SHARLET IS ONE OF THE FOLKS WHO POSTS COMMENTS.

LET'S HOPE THIS EXPOSES BART STUPAK'S CONNECTION TO THIS CULT!