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Ingrate cashes out

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Some thanks! Denise Rich is a songwriter, socialite and philanthropist with a wicked spending problem — provided the money she squanders goes solely to tax-and-spend liberals.

But Rich and I have one important thing in common (and it has nothing to do with her unfortunate wardrobe choices).

We both had a parent born in Austria. As with many Holocaust refugees, my mother’s journey and Rich’s dad’s ended here in the land of the free and the home where life, liberty and pursuit of obscene riches are possible. For some.

But unlike Rich, I love this country. It gave me, and my daughter, the chance to live.

Rich has long maintained dual citizenship with Austria, a country my mom despised until the day she died. Splitting citizenship never even occurred to me. But then, I’m not stinking rich.

Now, I know Rich had a plan.

At age 68, Rich has taken a horrifyingly unpatriotic step. As easily as she might toss last season’s Chanel handbag into a Dumpster, she’s renounced her American citizenship to become a full-fledged citizen of the German-speaking nation.

Here’s the infuriating part: Rich has said she’ll live primarily in London, near her two daughters and Austrian boyfriend, and not in Vienna, while jet-setting to visit her copious assets around the globe. She did this for the sleaziest of reasons: Rich does not want to pay American taxes.

Do you blame her? Well . . .

Rich has raised many millions for Democrats. Strategically, she donated at least $450,000 to build President Bill Clinton’s library in Little Rock, Ark. The president repaid her the day before he left office in 2001, pardoning her ex-husband, the convicted billionaire racketeer and tax cheat Marc Rich, then on the lam in Switzerland.

Special favors for the super rich? The pardon — and the notion that if you’re wealthy and well-connected you can, ironically, buy someone’s way back into America — revved up a popular outcry that hadn’t been seen since Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. (And later, when Snooki announced she’s pregnant.)

The one thing these awful Riches have in common with hoodlums and the late Leona Helmsley is an allergic reaction to an act your doorman or waitress practices faithfully.

They abhor paying their share.

With her citizenship renunciation, Rich has committed an act formerly reserved for enemies of the state, a co-founder of Facebook, and even the comic-book hero Superman.

But while a tortured Supe sloughed off his citizenship after intoning, “Truth, justice and the American way — it’s not enough anymore,’’ Denise is laughing all the way to the jewelry store, along with Eduardo Saverin, who earned billions as a Facebook pioneer before taking his loot to Singapore.

Rich’s citizenship slap drew outrage from some people who are not exactly poor. On the “Today’’ show, Dr. Nancy Snyderman called Rich “despicable.’’

Adman and TV personality Donny Deutsch said, “We are in a country that is at class warfare now.’’ As Helmsley once said, “Only the little people pay taxes.’’

The filthy rich find this method for tax avoidance increasingly convenient. Last year, 1,780 Americans gave up citizenship, as the Internal Revenue Service tracked down and prosecuted folks hiding money in foreign bank accounts. This was up sharply from 2008, when 226 US citizens dissed the tax man.

But 2012 is shaping up as a banner year. In the first quarter alone, 460 renounced citizenship. Rich tried to hide her treachery by renouncing under her maiden name, Denise Eisenberg.

As an Austrian, Rich must pay the United States a steep exit tax. But down the road, her new land offers hefty breaks to citizens who live there part-time.

So what should the ungrateful wench do instead?

For starters, Rich could flex her political muscle to lower taxes for all.

Or, she could vote Republican.

TomKat suspense lingers

When Tom Cruise divorced second wife Nicole Kidman, their two adopted children lived with Tom and remained Scientologists. But third wife Katie Holmes played mama bear in her split from the famed follower of L. Ron Hubbard. She’ll reportedly live in New York with daughter Suri, 6, and take a bundle of cash, while Tom gets to visit the kid.

Cruise gave a shout-out to Katie’s Catholicism in a joint statement announcing the couple’s divorce settlement, and Katie gave a thumbs-up to Scientology. (Just not for her and Suri.)

“We want to keep matters affecting our family private and express our respect for each other’s commitment to each of our respective beliefs and support each other’s roles as parents,” said the weirdly worded statement.

But Tom is reportedly plotting to lure Suri into the cult.

Can Suri resist Scientology in the long run? And will Katie finally quit carrying around her oversized kid?

Boy, that’ll teach ’em!

These teens were considered the best and brightest the city has to offer. Yet, 71 students at prestigious Stuyvesant HS were ordered to retake their state Regents exams after a massive cheating scandal.

That’s it?

Junior Nayeem Ahsan, who texted test questions to his friends, has been booted from Stuy and six were suspended. But most of the cheaters got away scot free. Well, they did lose their right to go off-campus for lunch next school year and were barred from clubs and sports teams, which never were much of a draw for these nerds anyway.

This offers a powerful lesson to budding masters of the universe:

Kids, cheat all you want. If you have the right connections and go to the best schools, your slate will be wiped clean.

Home-court disadvantage

Imagine the pillow talk.

Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson has sworn to do his utmost to get illegal guns off the streets. But he’s married to state appellate court Judge Dianne Renwick, who’s doing what she can to put weapons back in the hands of violent criminals

Last week, Renwick voted to toss the conviction of a teen caught with a gun outside a Manhattan housing project. The Appellate Division ruled 3-2 that the young man was unjustly stopped and frisked by a cop who apprehended this kid, armed and loaded.

Johnson can prosecute bad guys all day long. But with his wife working to free them, we’re back to Dodge City in no time.

Goose is cooked

After a huge spike in goose-vs.-airplane strikes, the feds put aside inter-agency squabbles and shouts from birdbrain activists. Officials are rounding up 700 feathered fiends nesting near Jamaica Bay by JFK and La Guardia airports, and killing them. Good.

The geese must die.