As reported in a front page story in the News & Observer, Deborah Ross’ motivation for championing North Carolina’s historic home tax credits are under question. The story notes, “she and her husband, Stephen Wrinn, also have benefited substantially from the historic tax credits she helped champion.”
According to the News & Observer, Ross and her husband have qualified for more than $267,000 in state and federal income tax credits. What’s more – Ross could not answer whether she paid any state or federal income taxes in some years due to the preservation tax credits claiming, “she would have to check.”
The story comes just days after a bombshell report from CNN that highlighted Deborah Ross’ radical tenure at the North Carolina ACLU defending a sexual predator by claiming the offender, “attempted, unsuccessfully, to rape her [the victim].”
In case you missed this morning’s News & Observer story:
News & Observer: Senate candidate opposed ending historic tax credits that had benefited her family
Democratic senatorial candidate Deborah Ross has widely touted her promotion of generous tax incentives for renovation projects that preserve the character of North Carolina’s historic neighborhoods and the state’s abandoned mills and warehouses – ghosts of industries gone offshore.
What she’s less vocal about is that she and her husband, Stephen Wrinn, also have benefited substantially from the historic tax credits she helped champion.
The couple has qualified for more than $267,000 in credits – direct reductions in their state and federal income taxes – for renovations that preserved original features of their home in Raleigh’s historic Boylan Heights neighborhood, an adjoining rental unit and a nearly century-old, water-powered mill in the Blue Ridge mountains.
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But Wrinn’s renovation hobby later created an awkward appearance that seemed to go unnoticed as his wife tried to fight off attempts to kill the state tax credits, including a 2006 mill rehabilitation credit she authored that has drawn praise for generating upward of $2 billion in real estate development and thousands of jobs. The law has led to the restoration of long-vacant textile plants and tobacco and furniture warehouses and has helped transform the faces of cities from Winston-Salem to Durham to New Bern.
By proposing to repeal the sunset of all the historic tax credits, one of her bills also would have extended the deadline for her husband’s preservation and conversion of a former 2,000-square-foot grain mill in Ashe County into a rustic vacation rental with an industrial look.
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While Wrinn was renovating the dilapidated structure in the state’s northwest corner, he grew anxious in 2013 because the General Assembly had voted in 2010 to reverse course and sunset all the historic tax credits. Even with a one-year extension of the sunset imposed in 2010, he was required to finish the work by Jan. 1, 2015, or risk losing 20 percent in state tax credits, worth at least $30,000.
“With the expiration of the state tax credits coming up in 2014, the pace of work on mountain time and other delays I have suffered, I already have concerns about finishing on time,” Wrinn wrote officials of the state Department of Cultural Affairs’ Office of Historic Preservation on Nov. 13, 2013.
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In March 2013, shortly before she left office and months before Wrinn wrote his letter, she co-sponsored a bill to repeal the sunsets on the state’s historic tax credits and make those programs permanent. The legislation went nowhere, but Wrinn managed to finish his work before the laws lapsed. The renovated mill was listed in 2014 on the U.S. Interior Department’s National Register of Historic Places.
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Ross did not respond to questions about the impact her bill might have had on her husband’s project.
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Ross was asked by McClatchy whether she had paid zero state or federal taxes in some years due to all the credits. She said she would have to check.
Hare said only that Ross “always paid her taxes.”
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Wrinn and Ross’ restoration project won federal approval in 2006, and Ross and Wrinn qualified for $131,000 in tax credits on their residence, with another $60,000 for the rental unit, according to state documents obtained under a public records request. The state Department of Cultural Resources acts as the U.S. Interior Department’s agent in providing guidance for such projects to ensure that each property is worthy of designation as a certified historic place and the renovation work preserves its character.
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Four years later, when a New Orleans developer ran into personal problems and was unable to renovate the Clark-Miller Roller Mill in Ashe County, Preservation North Carolina ceded its right of first refusal on the property to Wrinn, who bought the mill for $50,000 after its sale was publicly advertised, Howard said. As with his home, Wrinn estimated the construction costs would be $150,000. But his final qualifying expenditures totaled $340,000, earning the couple another $136,000 in state and federal tax credits.
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In 2005, Ross authored and later won passage of the bill calling for tax credits of 30 to 40 percent for renovations of historic industrial buildings that cost at least $3 million.
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