Gene Simmons says he’s moving out of Beverly Hills, Calif. due to “unacceptable” tax rates.

The rocker’s admission comes via a new conversation with the Wall Street Journal.

“California and Beverly Hills have been treating folks that create jobs badly and the tax rates are unacceptable,” the Kiss bassist opined. “I work hard and pay my taxes and I don’t want to cry the Beverly Hills blues but enough is enough.”

Simmons, has lived in the affluent Southern California suburb for more than 35 years, purchasing the home with his then-girlfriend, model Shannon Tweed, in 1984. At the time it was a ranch house set upon a hillside in the Benedict Canyon area of Los Angeles, far from what the rocker described as the “tour buses with well-meaning tourists from Sandusky, Ohio.”

The couple eventually married in 2011 at the nearby Beverly Hills Hotel. Together they raised two children on their property, Nick and Sophie, who are now 31 and 28, respectively. Simmons estimated he’s put roughly $12 million of work into the home over the years, including a massive overhaul to redevelop the house into a sprawling, 16,000-square-foot European-style mansion.

The home was featured extensively on Gene Simmons: Family Jewels, the rocker's reality show which aired for seven seasons from 2006 to 2012 on A&E.

Now, it appears that Simmons is ready to leave the property behind. The home has reportedly hit the market at an asking price of $22 million. Another of the rocker's homes, a Hollywood Hills hideaway, was put on sale earlier this year.

The Kiss frontman will relocate to Washington state, and a 24-acre estate he owns near Mount Rainier. Unlike California, Washington has no state income tax.

 

See Pictures of Gene Simmons' House

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