The Joe Martinez financial disclosure has bothered me since Scott Hiaasen first reported on it last year and I wish someone at the Herald had followed up on it. Here is the scoop.
If you look at page 11 of County Commissioner Joe Martinez’ financial disclosure for 2005 (he submitted his joint tax return), there is a Schedule D for wife. His wife claims she had 1/3 of a land contract for a little over a year. She paid $50,000 for her third. She sold her 1/3 for $194,000. Her gain was $144,301. She almost tripled her money.
If she had 1/3, that would mean the whole piece was a $150,000 purchase and sold for almost $600,000.
I have a lot of questions....
Real estate does not escalate that much in a year even under the best of circumstances unless of course “someone” knows where to buy a piece or hears of a great bargain, or a friend is helping make the deal. Maybe she is the most astute businesswoman in Florida, we just do not know.
And, where did the down payment come from? Was it family funds, Martinez was bankrupt in 1997, could there be a lot of extra cash? Did developer Jorge Perez lend her the money? We just don't know.
His wife will not divulge where this property is or anything about it, such as who her partners were in the deal. Because she only owned a 1/3 her name is not listed in any sale, corporation, etc. so it cannot be looked up.
Obviously if Martinez’s wife was in partnership with someone like Rodney Barreto or Lennar’s Stuart Miller on this land...it really is a conflict for her husband who votes on their issues. Even a smaller fish could be a problem for her husband. That is why it is important to know who her partners were. Did her husband vote on a zoning change that caused this property to skyrocket in price? He states he doesn't know anything about the property so maybe he did.
I do think it is ridiculous to let her keep these ties secret (given his power to make windfall profits for people) ties in a deal that make her, AND HER HUSBAND, an unheard of profit in a year.
Martinez claims he knows nothing about her deal. However, this husband and wife team commingle their funds via a joint return. As such, her real estate deals are his real estate deals.
For example: the IRS will always hold the two signers of a return responsible. If you sign a joint return you should/are expected to have done your due diligence. A wife (or husband) cannot claim innocence to the IRS. Since the commissioner had to have knowledge of her deal during every phase of it and because he profited from the deal and he had to pay taxes on the deal - I submit to you her deal should be a public record.
If all the money were separate, doing separate returns, have separate accounts etc. I could almost go with his/her lame argument. But there it is on HIS tax return which he submitted as a public record, thus open to scrutiny.
As long as a spousal signature is on a tax return: IT IS YOUR DUTY TO DISCUSS IT because YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR IT. Thus, I think the details of this deal should be part of the public record and I think Joe saying he didn't know anything about the details of the deal could be suspect. Any accountants out there?
P.S. Want to get to know Joe better? Don't miss the terrific DeFede Video: I Am Not a Crook Speech
3 comments:
It's time somebody alerts the IRS about Joe and wife's incredible dealings! Remember Al Capone? Evading paying income taxes is what got him in trouble and placed him in prison. Could Joe run into similar fate? Just think of this -one less commissioner to recall or worry about! And all of them (commissioners) claim having INTEGRITY - Ha! Ha! Ha!
he can't get in trouble, I was quoting from his tax returns! His financial disclosure is his tax return. He reported it. I had better go back and make that clear
the problem with miami is that we are one of the poorest cities & classified many times as the poorest city in the country but our politicians are spending & taxing us as if we were rich. we are maintaining a huge, powerful, super bureaucratic, out of control government which is run by left wing liberal mayors & commissioners who believe in a huge government & super, high property taxes to pay for it. they lobbied against property tax cuts. they want to make miami a New York city which we will never be. they are spending like drunken sailors & think that big government & lots of government spending is great for us. there are too many working for the government & living off the government. we don't want or need this huge government & outrageous property taxes which is destroying us. they need an economics lesson. we want a small limited government & low taxes. retired seniors are leaving florida to survive. it's immoral & unethical to tax seniors when we know they cannot pay.
look at just afew of the many examples of waste. $500 million on the carnival center which is bankrupt & can't support itself, $2billion cost overrun at the airport & it won't be finished for many years. the trams for the airport that cost hundreds of millions & were purchased years ago are obsolete & we're paying for their storage. millions stolen by contractors to build low income housing, were never built. commissioners are given free cars, lexus, mercedes benz etc. & not one of them drove their free luxery car paid for by the taxpayer a few blocks to see that nothing was being built. the maimi herald after going through the secrecy, tremendous government red tape & months of investigating had to bring it to their attention & the commissioners expressed their anger at the herald. HUD has taken the control of low income housing away from the miami commissioners because of gross incompetence & irregularities. i could go on & on. do you need any more proof of how stupid, ignorant & incompetant these people are. many of them are in bed & taking money, trips, sweatheart deals & favors from the builders. they enter politics poor & retire rich. check out their $100,000 pensions when they retire. the $2&1/2 billion alone for the carnival center & the airport overrun should be enough to convince you that these people should not be reelected ever. some of them should be in jail.
at a time when things are really bad & we're all broke from these outrageous property taxes, they want to spend another billion on a stadium for millionaires, the tunnel & museums nobody wants. south florida has the 2nd highest forclosure rate in the country & the highest inflation rate. the economy is suffering, unemployment is going up & real estate is completely dead.
these mayors & commissioners are living in another world. the world of big government & super high taxes. they don't know what they are doing & the miami government is extremely large & corrupt. soon, the only job will be a government job where you do nothing all day, become arrogant, lazy, get a great pay check, early retire & get a fantastic, generous pension plan for the rest of your life with cost of living increases. we have to get rid of all these mayors & commissioners before they completely bankrupt the city. they don't know what they are doing, they created a huge government they can't control it & they're solution for everything is to spend like drunken sailors. we have to start cutting this huge government that we can't afford back to 1999 levels where they belong. we can't afford to live here anymore & we can't attract businesses & investment with this huge bureaucratic government & super high property taxes. look at all of those empty condos that were built on the beach. why do you think they can't sell them. why do you think real estate is totally dead, retired seniors are leaving to survive & the economy is going down hill fast. these mayors & commissioners all have to go.
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