DALLAS - North Texas is corporate jet country.
Addison Airport is one of the busiest corporate flying centers in the country, and Dallas Love Field glitters with business jet bling. Dallas County tax rolls include 33 Grumman Gulfstreams, the Cadillac of business jets.
As for area owners and their planes, Jerry Jones owns a 2001 model and Mark Cuban a 2004 of an aircraft that has a new sticker price of about $40 million, according to FAA records. Records also revealed Cuban's former Broadcast.com business partner Todd Wagner bought a jet similar to Cuban's in 2004.
But on Dallas County tax rolls, the planes have vastly different values. Jones' plane, the oldest of the bunch, was on the books for $19,264,000 in 2008. Cuban's newer jet is on the rolls for $19,780,000. But, Wagner's aircraft was on the 2008 tax rolls for $4,562,300, about $15,000,000 less than the other two.
So, why the big difference in values?
Taxing the 567 corporate aircraft in Dallas County is an annoying problem for the Dallas County Appraisal District (DCAD). State law says a corporate aircraft can only be taxed for the amount of time it spends in the taxing district. So, if Wagner's lawyers can convince the appraisal district that his plane was in the area for only part of a year, it is only taxed on that value. Jones, Cuban and Wagner all have their aircraft registered to corporations affiliated with their businesses. Personally-owned airplanes, just like automobiles, are not taxable.
Finding when, if ever, a plane is in the county is a cat and mouse game. The county has a full-time aircraft employee whose job is to find the aircraft and determine how much tax they should pay. Aircraft owners have been known to fly their planes out of town if they know he's coming. And, in many cases, the county has to take the owner's word for how much time the plane has spent in Dallas.
"We have no way of knowing if they're here or not here," said Ken Nolan, of DCAD. "We get listing from the airports. We have people who go out to the airports and look around, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to catch everything."
To make it trickier, owners sue DCAD when they think they're being overtaxed. The tax rate on jets is about $26,000 per $1 million of valuation. Last year, sixteen airplane owners sued the county over the valuation of their planes.
"You've got well-heeled owners who have attorneys, or who are attorneys," Nolan said. "And obviously, if you can afford a plane, you can afford to sue the appraisal district."
Nolan makes it clear he doesn't relish going after anyone, fat cat or little cat, for tax money. It's simply his job, he said.
Jets are particularly vexing because it takes a lot of legwork to value a mobile asset like a Gulfstream than it does an office building, which just sits there.
Four years ago, Cuban took the county to court over the tax value made on a Boeing 757 he uses to fly the Dallas Mavericks. Cuban won. The tax value of the plane on county rolls dropped from $4,502,120 to $130, 940.
Cuban also owns a Boeing 767 airliner, the kind American Airlines flies from Dallas to Paris. He charters the plane to celebrities. Last year, that plane was on the tax rolls for $23, 520, less than a new SUV.
In 2007, Troy Aikman's jet was on the rolls for $3,120,000. Last year he sued DCAD. Now, it's on the rolls at $125,000. Sports figures aren't the only people who file jet-set litigation; they have simply learned from others.
The master of finding legal ways to reduce jet taxes appears to be James Wikert, an aircraft broker who operates several sales and leasing companies at 8611 Lemmon Avenue in the northeast corner of Love Field. FAA records show Wikert buys and sells aircraft for Dallas owners using the address of a hangar at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport in Anchorage, Alaska. Alaska has no sales tax, meaning a buyer there could save hundreds of thousands of dollars on a multi-million dollar jet.
Wikert did not respond to specific questions about his aircraft operations, but his attorney, Bruce Willis II issued a statement.
"The businesses associated with 8611 Lemmon Avenue are all private aviation businesses and pay their taxes to the appropriate taxing agencies," the statement read. "Any implication that our businesses have not rendered their aircraft to Dallas County for taxing purposes would be untrue."
E-mail bharris@wfaa.com
