On Tuesday, Joy Reid discussed the huge tax break that Kelly Loeffer and her husband got when her house value suddenly decreased by $6 million with her panel, Sam Brodey and Georgia Rep-Elect Nikema Williams. The meat of the discussion focused on how this tax break will hurt taxpayers and public services alike:
JOY ANN REID: How much money did she and her husband, who i should note is the CEO of the New York stock exchange, they're already rich, so all of the things she has been accused of that make her richer, she doesn't need the money. like she's rich. how much money did they save in taxes?
SAM : They saved $110,000 in property taxes their first year and then this change happened in 2016. their home since then has not come even close to the initial value of $10.5 million it once had. So it saved them somewhere around half a million dollars in the last five years. this is one of the most valuable properties in the entire city of Atlanta. a huge generator of tax revenue for the county and the property sphere so it's just unusual that a drop like this would occur. we were told it got -- got various theories from experts on this who said a number of things could have happened. It could have been a mistake. somebody could have changed it, the review, which is odd because this is the only house to see a drop like this. But the only thing we really know is whatever happened on the county side two of the wealthiest people in Atlanta got an enormous tax break on their home.
REID: Deprived Atlanta and the state of Georgia of tax revenue that could help pay for schools in Atlanta. I just think we should note that. Representative Williams, this sounds for all the world like corruption. It just does. There is no explanation. I think it is important we clarify the scope of what Sam Brodey was able to find. As an elected official, what do you make of the fact that at least 500,000 or so dollars in tax revenue was, you know, lost to the state of Georgia?
NIKEMA WILLIAMS: Joy, I think when people show you who they are, we should believe them. We have seen time and time again even at the brink of this pandemic, Kelly Loeffler looked out for herself, her own stock portfolio, and lined her own pockets instead of the best interests of everyday Georgians. This just tracks in the same playbook. and so I know that when everybody else was prepping and trying to buy toilet paper and preparing for the pandemic, I was getting my son, who is a student in Atlanta public schools, who could have used that additional revenue in our school system, she was not looking out for the best interests of everyday Georgians but for herself. So this is in line with who she has shown us that she is.
To reemphasize the obvious, the money that Kelly Loeffler and her husband screwed the people of Atlanta and all of Georgia, could have helped fund not only the schools but things that Loeffler purports she feels she cares strongly about, like the police.
