Sailing buy

I can't afford to buy a single home, but yacht owners get to deduct their boats as seconds? Thanks President Bush! But wait, there's more:

Some ultra-rich yacht buyers are expecting to deduct millions from their income tax next year by depreciating their pleasure craft under the provisions of the Bush administration's tax-relief program passed by Congress in 2003. About 500,000 boat owners nationwide can decrease their income-tax bill every year by declaring their vessels a second home. Some others collect healthy deductions from putting their boats into charter arrangements that may skirt the provisions of the tax code. And some corporations take deductions on yachts that seem to stretch the definition of a business resource.

Several yacht sellers gathered at the floating boat show on South Lake Union last month said most of the big pleasure boats on the water are supported by tax incentives.

"I would imagine that most of the people with boats over 50 or 60 feet are probably working some kind of tax dodge," agreed Jimmy James, a semiretired certified public accountant from Kingston who has advised many boat owners. "People with enough money to buy those boats got there by having tax dodges."