County considers special tax for Mar-a-Lago visits
6 Hours Ago
The Associated Press
... Palm Beach County spends more than $60,000 a day when the president visits, mostly for law enforcement overtime -- almost $2 million since January. Sheriff Ric Bradshaw says the county was expected to spend $250,000 during Trump's recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping ...
County Commissioner Dave Kerner has suggested turning Mar-a-Lago into a special taxing district and imposing a levy on the resort to pay the president's security costs. Because Mar-a-Lago is incorporated as a club, it pays lower property taxes than hotels. It also gets a tax break because Trump surrendered development rights after he purchased the property ...
The 500 members pay $14,000 annually in dues. The initiation fee was recently doubled to $200,000. Forbes Magazine estimates the club is now worth $150 million.
"We're very honored to have the president here, but at the same time, his travel here is such high frequency he's not visiting Palm Beach County — he's governing from it," Kerner told Money magazine recently. "Whatever our priorities are, the taxpayers didn't pay this money to us to protect the president" ...
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/11/county-considers-special-tax-for-trumps-mar-a-lago-visits.html
