I really think this is a good thing. Why start the term with a bunch of deadbeats in the cabinet?
One tax cheat in the cabinet ain’t that bad, all things considered.
He had a good chance of reforming health-care, from what I gather, so I hope his stupidity doesn’t ruin that chance.
Wow, color me surprise. I guess Obama’s taking that anti-corruption changing Washington thing more seriously than I thought.
I guess it depends on how low your bar of expectation was set.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090203/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_reform_promises_2
However, William J. Lynn III, his choice to become the No. 2 official at the Defense Department, recently lobbied for military contractor Raytheon. And William Corr, tapped as deputy secretary at Health and Human Services , lobbied through most of last year as an anti-tobacco advocate. Corr says he will take no part in tobacco matters in the new administration.
I have to admit it’s certainly better, but not exactly what I’d call “change.” Oh well, no big deal in the end.
I’m also not sure how Obama has anything to do with this since he stood by Daschle??
I think it shows how hard it is to find people who both meet the expected qualifications for high office, and who are squeaky clean in their personal, financial, and professional behavior. The longer people work in Washington, and hence, the more experience they get and more knowledge they acquire, the more valuable they are to business and the more money they make; the more money they make and the more people they know, the more chances for irregularities in their lives.
I’m not that concerned about the tax stuff, as long as it isn’t egregious and they pay back what they owe. Everyone dicks up their taxes, sometimes on purpose, often inadvertently. I do think the Lynn thing is bothersome, as one thing the Pentagon definitely does not need is conflicts of interests between the DoD and contractors; hell, that’s already a cesspit of incestuous dealings as it is.
I don’t think anyone else cares either (I certainly don’t, it’s no “gotcha”). I just hope the IRS cuts tax deadbeats a little slack now or the bloggers stop bleating about Halliburton long enough so I can think straight for a second.
It’s kind of like the drug war issue from the other thread – no one minds, but please treat lesser citizens the same way!
What the heck are you talking about?
Are these guys being treated any differently than normal by the IRS? My understanding is that the IRS in both cases was unaware that they owed taxes and these were voluntary corrections.
Geithner’s liability came out in an audit.
Is it really that hard to get your tax payments to withing 6 figures of accuracy when you hire specialists to do them for you?
You make it sound so innocent.
Describing it as a “voluntary correction” glosses over the fact that a guy who ought to be in a position to know how our government taxes its citizens apparently had no idea that accepting this gift was a taxable event.
Not trying to start a war here. Don’t we all win with an IRS taking it easier on average citizens and bloggers quieting down a bit in the face of obvious (but mostly harmless) hypocrisy? :) This isn’t a controversial statement.
I don’t mean it to sound innocent, I was just focusing on how the IRS deals with these cases and whether or not they were treating these guys any different that they treat the average taxpayer.
Seriously, after Zoe Baird had to withdraw her nomination for Attorney General because of failing to pay social security taxes on a nanny, you’d think that every aspiring politician in the country would fucking pay their taxes in fear of this shit coming to bite them later on. What a bunch of idiots.
By the way, that’s an interesting what-if scenario. If Zoe Baird had actually survived her taxgate and become AG; Clinton wouldn’t have had to get Janet Reno. Would that have changed any number of things?
Yeah, the comment from Daschle that he emailed his accountant about it and forgot until December is ludicrous. I sweat hours on tricky tax nonsense until I get it resolved, and my taxes are piddly.
I guess you can be a moron about some things and still have the genius to reform health care across the nation, but it certainly becomes less likely.
A lot of you are making this sound easier than it is. Let’s take Daschle’s case.
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His accountant is presumably based in South Dakota, Daschle’s stomping grounds.
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Daschle pulls in income from multiple sources, and from multiple states and jurisdictions.
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One of Daschle’s employers fails to report the first month of income they paid him on Daschle’s W2 from them. The excuse from the company is rather prosaic: their accountant who handles that stuff was on a maternity leave.
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The other big cheat on Daschle’s record: he realizes that the car and driver he’s been using may count as taxable income after the fact. Realize that it would be unlikely for the IRS to turn that stone over themselves, so Daschle self-reporting it is something of a political “just in case” gesture.
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Daschle’s accountant back in South Dakota has an awful lot of W2’s from various income sources to Daschle and can probably be forgiven for the oversight of not realizing that a month of income was missing from one of those forms.
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Daschle’s accountant probably didn’t realize his client was using the services of a car and driver and unless his client self-reports, it doesn’t get filed as income. Since Daschle didn’t realize himself that it counted as taxable income until 6 months into the next tax year, again it’s hard to fault it to anything but the circumstances.
One point (perhaps non-existent) that has yet to be discussed from what I have read is the level of scrutiny by the Obama team in scrubbing the people joining. I am wondering (now at three folks) how many more tax issues would arise if the whole of our political body went through the same process…
Eugene Volokh has an interesting post about the other Obama pick, Killefer:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_02_01-2009_02_07.shtml#1233691174
Now this seems like a totally different situation to me. She seems to have messed up her taxes to the tune of < $1000.
I don’t want to make it sound like I’m proposing some kind of zero tolerance policy for tax messups. I’ve screwed up my estimated state payments at least three times. (I didn’t pay estimated payments on time after sales of stock.)
I ended up getting penalized to the tune of about $50 bucks each time IIRC. This kind of messup (or the one Killefer seems to have been caught by) seems like a non-story.
Daschle seems like a different story to me.
Very good point.