More than 40 property owners say Rhode Island deliberately targeted second-home owners who can’t vote in the state — and they want a judge to kill the tax.
Rhode Island’s controversial “Taylor Swift Tax” is headed for a courtroom showdown.
More than 40 owners of high-value second homes have sued the state, arguing the new tax is an unconstitutional money grab deliberately designed to hit property owners who have one big political disadvantage: They can’t vote against the lawmakers who imposed it. (Swift is not a party to the lawsuit)
Hinckley Allen filed the complaint Wednesday in Newport County Superior Court, seeking to block enforcement of the tax and refund money collected from the plaintiffs.
And at the center of the case is a remarkable comment from the legislative debate.
According to the complaint, the primary legislative sponsor of the Selective Property Tax said the quiet part out loud during the legislative hearings on the law when she acknowledged the real purpose and intent behind the tax:
“I think the beauty of this, and I’ll—I’ve been an elected member of the House of Representatives since first election in 1992, so I’ve been through a lot of elections—and none of these people, being nonresidents of the State of Rhode Island, none of these people can vote against me or any of you because they’re nonresidents. They can’t register to vote here, so they might be unhappy about it, but um, we need to find some money somewhere.”
“The law does violence to one of our democracy’s animating principles: ‘no taxation without representation,’” the complaint argues.
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