Posted on 02/04/2009 5:34:51 AM PST by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- It's safe bet that President Barack Obama will not be getting any awards from H&R Block for his administration's ability to sniff out tax dodgers among his Cabinet nominees.
Three nominees in a row, at last count, have run into trouble for nonpayment of taxes. One wiggled through his nomination, but two others have withdrawn, badly tarnishing the Obama presidency and shaking public confidence in his administration.
It was embarrassing enough that Timothy Geithner, President Obama's nominee for Treasury secretary, failed to pay $34,000 in taxes. This guy, after all, was a Federal Reserve president who will oversee the Internal Revenue Service -- whose job is to go after tax deadbeats.
But worse than that, Geithner had put off paying the IRS until November, shortly before Obama named him to the high-level Cabinet post, two years after the IRS brought the troubling tax problems to his attention in 2006.
When the roll was called in the Senate on his nomination, 34 senators voted against confirmation -- an unusually high vote of no confidence for a Treasury secretary -- including Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa.
Before that scandal had barely cooled, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, nominated to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, revealed that he hadn't paid more than $128,000 in back taxes over three years.
Incredibly, Daschle chose to pay what he owed (more than $140,000 with penalties) just six days before his confirmation hearing. Colleagues were stunned by his lame excuse that he didn't know he owed the taxes.
The Senate Finance Committee, which oversees the IRS and the tax code, questioned Daschle behind closed doors Monday to hear their former colleague's explanations for his transgressions. He emerged from the grilling looking ashen-faced. By Tuesday, he withdrew his nomination, saying the uproar of his tax delinquency would only be "a distraction" that would end up hurting a presidency still in its infancy.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse when the average American worker is hauled before the IRS court to explain nonpayment of taxes. But that was part of Daschle's explanation when he was asked why he did not pay the taxes that were long overdue.
He had made more than $5 million in the past two years, reaping more than $220,000 from the healthcare industry that he would oversee as secretary of HHS, and the use of a chauffeured limo whose services are taxed by the IRS as income -- but on which he had paid no taxes.
That service alone was valued at $255,000 in unreported income, the committee's staff investigation found. Failure to report it can be a crime.
Particularly embarrassing to the Obama White House was the huge sum Daschle raked in from the health industry over which he would have official jurisdiction as HHS secretary.
The Health Industry Distributors Association (HIDA) dished out $14,000 for a speech he gave last year, and reminded the South Dakota Democrat of the fat check he received when the group raised concerns about possible Medicare reforms that would affect the healthcare industry.
In a letter, posted on its Web site, the organization reminded Daschle: "As you may recall from speaking to some of our members during HIDA's 2008 Executive Conference in Miami, where you were the keynote speaker, a competitive bidding program will undermine access to quality care for millions of beneficiaries."
But the consulting (i.e., lobbying) Daschle did for the healthcare industry goes much deeper than the large speaking fees he got from the health-insurance industry, drug companies and other healthcare groups.
As part of his work for law firm Alston & Bird in the past two years, he gave "policy advice" to UnitedHealth Group, an insurance conglomerate that assists the Medicaid program and dispenses advice to drug companies.
Obama wanted Daschle to oversee the development of his healthcare-reform program, but in the end he had become a case study in conflicts of interest that turned into an ethical nightmare for the administration.
The third nominee to run into income tax trouble Tuesday was Nancy Killefer, nominated to be a deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and the administration's chief performance officer. She withdrew her name Tuesday after it came to light that she had mishandled her payroll taxes.
These embarrassing vetting blunders were "really quite stunning for a transition team that has so carefully studied everything that might go wrong," said presidential scholar Stephen Hess at the liberal Brookings Institution.
If any of these tax-evasion cases had broken in a Republican White House, the Democrats would be screaming for a special prosecutor and blocking any vote. The Democrats confirmed Geithner Monday and probably would have confirmed Daschle, too, but he mercifully spared Obama and his party from the bloody Senate battle that would have ensued.
Leona Helmsley, the late New York real-estate diva who went prison for failing to pay her taxes, once famously said, "Only the little people pay taxes." Three high-income tax evaders in a row this week left many people thinking that the Obama Democrats were adopting Helmsley's imperious rule.
The folks who made it this far had to fill out a 27 page vetting application. What happened? They forgot to ask if there were any tax issues?
Liberals don’t have to pay their own taxes; they live to spend everyone else’s taxes. Nuff said.
I’ve emailed both Rush and Sean today asking IF they could help start a national grass roots call in campaign, the likes & scope of the immigrations and original bail out call/email, BUT this time to the IRS demanding they audit all 435 members of Congress, 100 members of the Senate, every single registered lobbyist in Washington DC and other high level positions. This should also be extended to the state levels as corruption is probably rampant there too. There is no telling how many tax cheats are running our country into the ground with their “good ole boy” network. This IS the Change America needs and we need it now more than ever~!!!!!
There is no telling how many cheats this would expose~~!!!!
Deana
Yeah. THIS is change I can believe in.
/sarc
Corrupt and incompetent are a bad combination for a President.
Pray for America
Clinton had some problems with confirmations in 93, but nothing like this.
All the others in the Odumbo admin need to have their taxes checked.
It would be safe to assume that there are others.
Oh, c’mon. Paying taxes is for Republicans...
More hypocrisy from the party of “do as I say, not as I do.”
Rather than tea bags we ought to send the White House our old Turbo Tax CD’s.
One thing Obama needs to learn is some respect for the office of President. “I screwed up” is not the language of the President. (Although he did state the obvious) Additionally, constantly going negative and telling America how awful things are and that it is going to get worse is NOT the way a President is supposed to lead. Put your suitcoat back on in the Oval Office, sir.
In reality, the only person he can get through without making him look like the @$$ he is is a Republican (well, maybe a RINO, but not a democrat anyway).
"Adopting?" As if that rule wasn't born and raised in the Democrat party?
Was anyone aware that Theresa Heinz-Kerry reaps millions of dollars a year completely tax free? If you can afford tens of millions of dollars worth of government bonds, you too can pay no income tax.
This could take some time.
I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Remember Biden said “paying taxes is pay-triotic.” We all know there are no patriots in the Democrat party.
Is Daschle going to have to register now as a lobbyist, which he obviously is?
Talk about a loser....he paid his back taxes and now he didn’t get the job. Finally a little justice in America.
I guess they were too busy worrying over whether the candidate owned a gun...
I’m sure that was grounds for immediate disqualification. a personal security guard. Elitist tax-dodging Obama appointees don’t have guns - their armed security guards do. :)
Fletcher J
Why was Daschle’s testimony before the Senate Committee behind closed doors? There were no state secrets that may have been revealed.
two years after the IRS brought the troubling tax problems to his attention in 2006.
Seems they got special treatment there as well. If that had been one of us peons we would be out on the streets because the IRS would have seized every damn thing we had by then!
oh and p.s.
we have to pay estimated taxes each year and if we don’t we get penalized. Wonder if any of them got taxed with a penalty?
M.O.C.:
Mugabe, Obama, Chavez:
The “Financial Leaders” of Our Time?
My solution would be just to fire his ass.
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