Gold Coast Bemoans Luxury Tax

Tax would be on boats, expensive cars and planes.

Plenty of Connecticut residents are unhappy with Gov. Dannel Malloy's tax proposals, but people on the state's Gold Coast are sick over one provision in particular: a new luxury tax on boats.

Republican State Senator Scott Frantz commiserated with business leaders at a Greenwich Chamber of Commerce breakfast this week, according to the Greenwich Time, .

"It's a ridiculous idea to tax something mobile like that," Frantz said. "We're going to fight this."

The tax would be on boats that sell for more than $100,000, cars worth more than $50,000 and planes. Under the governor's proposal, a 3 percent tax would be added to the proposed 6.35 percent sales tax rate.

Frantz predicts many yachters and people with pleasure boats will dock their vessels out of state to avoid paying the new tax.

Frantz himself owns a 72-foot racing yacht called the Ticonderoga, but does not plan to dock it out of state, the Time reports.

"I'm happy to pay sales or use tax to the state of Connecticut," Frantz told the Greenwich Time.

During the meeting, Bruce Wennerstrom, who co-founded the Greenwich's antique car show, Concours d'Elegance, asked: "Can you propose that we split the state into West Connecticut and East Connecticut?"

"I actually did look at the process of secession a few years ago," Frantz said -- the crowd laughing. "It's impossible."

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