Quote:
Originally Posted by Lauren Ritchie
Folks,
I have been reading the posts that assume the golf courses, ect., will go back to the developer in the event the bonds are recalled. That is completely in error.
|
No one is assuming anything here. Just speculating on possible ways in which this could be resolved. It's not as much about what he can or cannot be compelled to do but more about what he probably should do to clear up the mess that he created.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lauren Ritchie
.....The developer is not in any way legally considered as the district. Even the IRS has not attempted to prove that.
|
If you feel strongly about this, then why at the same time that you posted this here did you post the following statement in your column today:
"What is conspicuously absent from the revenue agent's scenarios is what role Morse might have in this, if any. The agent spent considerable time and energy building a case that the developer is the district, and the district is the developer. If so, shouldn't the developer — the biggest beneficiary in this arrangement by far — bear some responsibility? Or is he absolved by declaring his profits from the bonds as taxable?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lauren Ritchie
Realize that Morse did not issue these tax-exempt bonds. The board of supervisors of your district government did.
Lauren
|
No, it's
Morse's government
not the homeowners government(s) that issued these tax-exempt bonds. The two CDD's under scrutiny here were established under chapter 190 by virtue of the landowners of Real Property physically located within the boundaries of those two CDDs. And absolute control of it remains with the owners of record which, under Chapter 190 can (and does) include private corporations and trusts. And that clearly is the Morse family aka The Developer and can be identified by the land owners of record in the Registry of Deed of the counties in which they reside. The homeowners in The Villages and the numbered CDD that their property is a part of, do not own so much as one square inch of the real property inside the boundaries of the VCCDD or SLCDD.
But ironically, due to the nature of this unusual governmental structure, those two special CDDs cannot foist their tax woes immediately onto the homeowners in The Villages. Those two special CDDs have no taxing powers over the numbered CDDs and only real source of income is the amenity fee whose annual increase is capped at the inflation rate.