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Exclusive: State Okays Fishy Boat Dealers

By   /   May 27, 2010  /   7 Comments

An exclusive investigation by Nebraska Watchdog has found a plumbing company, two commercial painters and at least one ex-convict included in a four page list of registered boat dealers in the State of Nebraska.

The list examined by Nebraska Watchdog, names dozens of individuals and businesses which appear to have little or nothing to do with boat sales and could be costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost taxes.

According to the state there are 115 registered boat dealers in Nebraska. But Nebraska Watchdog’s exclusive investigation finds that more than half the dealers are fishy.

Late last year Nebraska Watchdog first reported that State Senator Kent Rogert of Tekamah has avoided paying the sales tax on his $40,000 speedboat. Rogert has taken advantage of a loophole in state law which allows anyone, without providing any proof, to get a boat dealer’s registration number. And because they are dealers, they don’t pay sales taxes on the boat.

Now Nebraska Watchdog has found that of those 115 registered boat dealers, many admit they don’t sell boats.

Nebraska Watchdog recently contacted 28 car and truck dealers which, according to the state, hold dealer registrations on 37 boats. When Nebraska Watchdog asked the dealerships if they sold boats all 28 said “no.”

Nebraska Watchdog also found nearly a dozen boats registered to individual home addresses and three dozen others to a variety of businesses. Nebraska Watchdog was unable to reach them for comment. 

Among those listed by the State of Nebraska as a boat dealer is a Lincoln man, Joseph P. Knopp. Knopp tells Nebraska Watchdog, “We do sell boats occasionally but it’s been a while.” Knopp is the President of JPK Investment Motors and is on parole following two convictions, one for fraud, in U.S. District Court in Lincoln.

In 2006 Knopp pleaded guilty to charges of bank fraud and faulty record keeping involving high powered weapons. According to court records Knopp, a licensed firearms dealer, failed to comply with federal rules and document his acquisition of 21 machine guns. The same court records also note that Knopp, while applying for a loan, intentionally misled officials of the Centennial Bank in Ashland, Nebraska.

Knopp was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, placed on supervised release for five years and ordered to pay $251,000 in restitution on the fraud charge. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison and a year of supervised release on the gun charge. Both sentences were to be served concurrently. Knopp was released from prison on December 27, 2007.

Later this year the Nebraska Legislature’s Transportation Committee is scheduled to look into the boat dealer business. It’s expected that among other things the committee will examine the loopholes in the law uncovered by Nebraska Watchdog including the fact that unlike car dealers, boat dealers are not licensed by the state.

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Editor’s note: to see Nebraska Watchdog’s initial investigation click here.

Reported by Joe Jordan, joe@nebraskawatchdog.org

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Joe Jordan

  • GeosUser

    OMG! Someone is using a supposed loophole to avoid paying sales tax on a purchase in Nebraska. The sky is falling for sure now…LOL!!! There are only 2 good days in a boat owner’s life. The first is the day he buys the boat and the second is the day he finally sells it. In between, boats are nothing but a money pit. So let’s make sure the state of Nebraska is able to ruin one of those two good days. There’s so much waste and fraud in big state programs that should be the focus of the legislature, I’m glad to see that some committee is going to waste their time on 30-40 folks finding a way to avoid some NE tax. Now if you’re going to scrap the income and property tax systems in NE in favor of a consumption-based tax system, then I’m right there with you on closing “loopholes”. Absent that, who really gives a crap.

  • UNL Grad

    There used to be a day when ethical lawmakers would lead by example. Trust me, this guy Rogert has never heard of the term “ethical.” The boat is the least of his worries. Darn those wedding rings!

  • Don Potter

    Interesting bit of inuendo about the wedding ring. Do you know something… or are just rumor mongering?

    I heard he was really born in Kenya.

  • Texas Annie

    Well GeosUser I did give a crap about tax policies such as this when I lived there. And I expect your Libertarians and sentient Tea Partiers give a crap! Nebraska’s tax structure (not just the sales tax) is so riddled with holes that it resembles nothing so much as swiss cheese. If every business, non-profit and individual paid their sales tax, you could certainly reduce if not outright repeal your income tax or property tax, or both.

    I “used” to give a crap soooo much, that I literally got the hell out of ‘Ne-tax-ya’ upon retirement. Do you experience no guilt and no shame about Nebraska’s policy of importing taxpayers? Believe me, it was quite a shock for our family the first year we were brought to Nebraska to pay taxes in lieu of the corporate taxes which should have been collected. Your leaders call such tax policy “economic development.” I call it “using people as a means to an end, not as an end unto themselves”…i.e. an unethical tax policy to be sure.

    Do you give a crap about ethics?

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