Every year, a select few (lucky) reporters get to sit in a closed room at Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s accountant’s office and pore over his tax returns — no recording or copying allowed. This year, they discovered that he paid just shy of 35 percent in taxes (very “99 percent” of him) and did some real-estate shopping. The mayor bought a $4.55 million 33-acre estate in North Salem (likely to be combined with his existing 20-acre property next door) and Southampton’s $20 million, 35-acre Ballyshear Estate (see picture above), bringing his global housing collection to eleven. That’s right: three in Manhattan (one housing the mayor’s foundation), three in Westchester, one in the Hamptons, one in London, and one in Bermuda, plus Colorado and Florida homes. And then there’s the private helicopter fleet to shuttle him between them.
