Sen. Claire McCaskill has sold her private plane for nearly $2 million, seven months after she admitted she failed to pay more than $300,000 in state property taxes on the aircraft over four years.
Her disclosure about unpaid taxes – and her much-chronicled struggle to sell the aircraft – has been a highly embarrassing episode for the moderate Missouri Democrat who faces a tough reelection campaign next year. Her spokesman said the sale, first reported Tuesday night by McClatchy Newspapers, makes good on McCaskill’s promise last spring “to sell the damn plane.”
“Claire said she would sell the plane and did. True to her word as always,” McCaskill spokesman Trevor Kincaid said in a statement. The 2001 Pilatus PC-12/45 aircraft, listed at $2.1 million, was “sold at a loss” for $1.9 million, Kincaid said.
The former state auditor’s plane problems have tarnished her reputation in Missouri and Washington as a crusader for good government and fiscal responsibility. And they’ll almost certainly continue to dog her throughout the 2012 campaign.
In March, McCaskill reimbursed the Treasury more than $88,000 after POLITICO reported she had used taxpayer dollars from her Senate office account to pay for nearly 90 flights on her plane, which she owned with her husband, St. Louis businessman Joe Shepard, and other investors. That same week, POLITICO reported that at least one of the trips was political in nature, prompting the Missouri Republican Party to file a Senate ethics complaint against McCaskill. That later was dismissed.
After initiating a review of all flights on the plane, McCaskill revealed to reporters that she and Shepard had failed to pay nearly $320,000 in state back taxes and penalties on the plane, something she called a “big, serious, sloppy mistake.” That money was eventually repaid.
She told reporters that day: “I have convinced my husband to sell the damn plane. I will never set foot on the plane again.”
Rep. Todd Akin, former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman, and businessman John Brunner are seeking the Republican nomination in the race against McCaskill, who will be seeking her second six-year term in November 2012.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Claire McCaskill finally sold the private plane that caused her so much political heartburn last spring and damaged her image of public rectitude.
Dubbed “Air Claire” by Republican critics, McCaskill had promised “to sell the damn plane” when the controversy involving public reimbursement for political travel and delinquent back taxes put the normally surefooted Missouri Democrat back on her heels.
“Claire said she would sell the plane and she was true to her word,” said her spokesman, Trevor Kincaid. He declined to reveal the buyer or the price except to say that McCaskill suffered a loss.
McCaskill and her husband, a wealthy St. Louis area developer, own the plane with other investors. She used it for official Senate travel and sought public reimbursement, which is permitted under Senate rules.
But she mistakenly included political travel in the request, which was sandwiched in among her official trips around the state.
She repaid the government $88,000, the costs of all the travel, official and otherwise. But then McCaskill discovered that she also owed $287,000 to St. Louis County, where the plane was housed, in unpaid property taxes, interest and penalties.
Republicans filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee, which was recently dismissed. But she faces re-election next year and is a top GOP target.
A former county prosecutor and Missouri state auditor, she has been an outspoken voice on Capitol Hill for integrity in government contracting and spending. Despite repaying the bills and selling the plane, the issue will likely take flight again during the 2012 campaign.
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