Saturday, January 31, 2009

Obama Administration Tax Problem

No, not the one that will probably force him to raise taxes, but the apparent inability of his nominees to pay their taxes.

The latest revelation is Tom Daschle, a former Senator for crying out loud, who failed to pay $128,000 in taxes. Here are his lame excuses:
A spokeswoman for Daschle confirmed last night that he recently paid back taxes in excess of $100,000. She said that Daschle, a former Senate majority leader, and his accountant discovered the error regarding the luxury car service and reported it to the committee after his vetting was completed.

Daschle paid the back taxes six days before his first Senate confirmation hearing with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The Finance Committee, however, has jurisdiction over his nomination.

Daschle, one of President Obama's earliest and most steadfast campaign supporters, is the second Cabinet nominee to acknowledge tax errors. On Jan. 13, Timothy F. Geithner, who was chosen to run the Treasury Department, disclosed that he had not paid some taxes and subsequently paid $43,000 in taxes and penalties. He was sworn in on Jan. 26.

Because of an apparent clerical error by the equity firm, Daschle did not report more than $83,000 in consulting fees in 2007 and has not provided sufficient documentation relating to $15,000 in charitable contributions over three years, according to the panel's report. He and his wife, Linda, gave $276,000 in charitable contributions during the three-year period being studied by the panel, according to a Daschle aide.
Look, $83,000 is not a clerical error. He knew about it and didn't report it.

Lame.

Remember in the Clinton Administration is was illegal alien domestic help. Apparently in the Obama administration, it will be back taxes.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I think it was 2004, maybe a bit later, but after years of disastrous policies, Bush finally admitted he had made mistakes, saying he may have had some people in his administration that shouldn't have been there. On the one hand, this way of shifting the blame to others was typical of Bush, and on the other hand, what are we supposed to expect of our President? Choose the best people for the job, and look good doing it. And Bush blew it. And now Obama is doing the same.

As much as I believe in Obama's personal ability to fix the mess, his choices up to now have been awful (give or take a Nobel Laureate).