That’s right folks Pascagoula Mayor Dane Maxwell was telling a whopper or two about where he lived when he was elected Mayor or he has swindled the Harrison County tax collector. Let’s take a trip back to early 2017 when the topic of Dane Maxwell’s residency first surfaced:
Questions arose on social media last week about Pascagoula mayoral candidate Dane Maxwell and his residency.
The Mississippi Press received a tip about the residency issue, accompanied with screenshots showing Maxwell’s Biloxi address and his being registered to vote in Harrison County. The Mississippi Press spoke with Maxwell, who addressed the questions on Thursday.
“You want to know if I am a Pascagoula resident. Yes, I am a resident of Pascagoula,” said Maxwell, a Republican. “I lay my head every night at the Scranton condos in Pascagoula on the corner of Martin and Ingalls Avenue. I have a lease there and signed it late last year. I own 10 and a half acres of land on 11th Street, and we just completed a small shed and big shop there. I currently have the house plans with me, now that we have finished.”
So in late 2016 Maxwell signed a lease on a condo with the full intent of becoming a resident of the City of Pascagoula in order to run for Mayor. What was Maxwell’s obligation with regard to his existing homestead exemption? Here is what the state tax regulations say:
Before the exemption can be allowed, the applicant must make a written application between January 1 and April 1 of the year in which the exemption is sought. The applicant alone is responsible for making the application. He is required to furnish all information required by the application. It must be complete, true, and correct. It is the responsibility of the applicant to complete the information required within the application. It is entirely his document. It is his sole responsibility. The applicant’s responsibility does not end until the entire application (the original, duplicate, triplicate and quadruplicate copies) has been delivered to the Tax Assessor on or before April 1. The quadruplicate copy is to be signed and dated by the Tax Assessor or his deputy, marked “filed” and returned to the applicant. If a change in the homestead or the applicant’s status occurred since January 1 of the previous year, a new application must be filed between January 1 and April 1.
How do we know that Maxwell claimed Homestead exemption in Harrison County? Simple folks the tax records are online right here:
Here is a screen capture of the link: Continue reading “He may have been Mayor of Pascagoula since mid 2017 but he claimed Homestead Exemption in Harrison County until 2019”