Adviser's residence disputed

He received homestead exemption tax breaks in two places at once.
WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON -- Presidential adviser Karl Rove may live in Washington. But in his heart -- and for voting purposes -- he remains a Texan.
Which means he is not legally entitled to the homestead deduction and property tax cap he's been getting on his Washington home for the past 3 1/2 years.
This week, the District of Columbia tax collector was alerted to the problem. And Rove agreed to reimburse the District for an estimated $3,400 in back taxes, city officials said. But now some Lone Star officials also are wondering about the place Rove calls home.
In a letter released Friday by the White House, the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue accepted blame for the error, which also has affected numerous members of Congress.
Ineligible for exemption
The homestead exemption gives District taxpayers a substantial tax break on their primary residences. But starting in 2002, a change in the law made it available only to Washington property owners who do not vote elsewhere, city officials said. That made Rove, and many others, ineligible.
"OTR failed to rescind the benefit when the law changed. As a result of OTR's error, the property inadvertently received tax deductions for which you no longer qualified," chief assessor Thomas Branham wrote Rove.
"We regret any inconvenience that this error on the part of OTR may have caused you."
Rove, who was touring the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast with President Bush Friday, was unavailable to comment, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said. She said Rove never intended to make an improper claim to the deduction.
"When Mr. Rove purchased the home in January 2001, he qualified for the exemption. He was not made aware of the changes in D.C. law," Healy said. "Now that it has been brought to his attention, he is making restitution. He certainly was not trying to mislead anybody."
Going forward, Healy said, Rove will forgo the exemption and tax cap on his Washington house -- valued at more than $1.1 million -- rather than give up his status as a Texas voter. But that raises a new set of questions.
Rove sold his longtime home in Austin in 2003. He was getting a homestead exemption there, too. So for three years, from 2001 until the sale, Rove was claiming homesteads in Texas and Washington, which is, technically, illegal, according to tax collectors in both cities. "Strictly speaking, you can only have one homestead," said Art Cory, chief tax appraiser in Travis County, Texas.
Cory said he would, nonetheless, probably not bother to investigate.
Anyway, Rove is now registered to vote in Kerr County, about 80 miles west of Austin in the Texas Hill Country. He and his wife, Darby, have owned property there, on the Guadalupe River, since at least 1997, according to county property records.
But as far as the locals know, the couple have never actually lived in either of two tiny rental cottages Rove claims as his residence on Texas voter registration rolls.