The Alaska Democratic Party has asked Maryland tax authorities to review tax credits received by Alaska Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan while he lived in a Washington, D.C., suburb.
The party's chairman, Mike Wenstrup, wrote the Maryland taxation department's director last week to ask for a review of what the party says are $4,500 in tax breaks that Sullivan and his family received between 2006 and 2008 when they purchased a house in Bethesda and declared it their "principal residence."
Sullivan also voted absentee in Alaska in the November 2008 general election and said he had been an Alaska resident since 1997 when he registered his U.S. Senate candidacy in May.
Wenstrup's letter was first reported by Alaska Public Media. A spokesman for Sullivan called the request for a review "more campaign nonsense from the Democrats."
"The Begich operation, super PAC included, spent $5 million attacking Dan for not being Alaskan enough in the primary," said the spokesman, Mike Anderson. "Now they claim Dan was too Alaskan."
Sullivan moved his family temporarily to Maryland while he worked as an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of State, said Anderson, who didn't dispute that Sullivan had received the tax breaks described in the letter.
A spokesman for the Alaska Democratic Party, Zack Fields, said he didn't know whether the party's letter would reveal that Sullivan had acted improperly.
"All Mike Wenstrup asked for was an investigation to see what rules he may have broken or not have broken," Fields said.
In a phone interview Friday, Robert Young, the director of Maryland's taxation department, said his office had received the letter Wednesday and would review the Democrats' request.
"We're going to do an inquiry on this particular credit, just like any other inquiry we get," he said, adding that his department receives "thousands" of requests.
Young said Sullivan's voting record was one factor the department would use in its review, but he added that Sullivan's 2008 absentee vote in Alaska wouldn't automatically disqualify him from receiving tax credits in Maryland.
A key factor, Young added, would be the location where Sullivan filed his federal income tax return during the years in question. Asked where Sullivan had filed his returns in 2006 through 2008, Anderson said he could not immediately answer Friday.
Young said he expected his office's review to take at least two to three weeks.