By Liz Rodriguez
Did you hear the news? The Inspector General accused Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner of overpaying billions of (our hard-earned taxpayer) dollars to AIG. This is a direct result of Obama nominating a tax cheat to head the Treasury Department and Congress confirming him, despite his alarming tax history.
From Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard’s blog:
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is in trouble again, and this time he may not be able to save his job. You’ll recall that his confirmation was threatened by revelations of cheating on his income taxes. Now he’s accused of paying billions too much for the bailout of AIG and allowing the insurance firm’s Wall Street creditors — Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Wachovia — to be paid in full for their derivative contracts with $27.1 billion in taxpayers’ money.
Obama and Democrats knew all about Geithner’s tax troubles before they confirmed him as Treasury Secretary. Obama said Geithner’s tax issues were an “embarrassment” but downplayed them to an honest mistake. Democrats quickly jumped on the propaganda wagon. Obama’s aides told us it was an emergency and that Geithner’s past tax “issues” wouldn’t be a problem. Obama’s press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tim Geithner’s “service should not be tarnished by honest mistakes, which, upon learning of them, he quickly addressed.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said he doesn’t think the errors are enough to disqualify Geithner. “Many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle agree with that,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told reporters he was “not concerned at all” about the matter. He called Geithner, currently the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, “extremely well qualified.”
Stan Collender, a former House and Senate Budget Committee analyst, said Geithner’s nomination isn’t likely to be derailed by the tax and housekeeper revelations, especially in the Democratic-controlled Congress.
“It’s like a parking ticket,” Collender said. “I can’t imagine in the current environment it would be much of a problem.”
Just like a parking ticket Stan. Only it didn’t involve a car and it cost Geithner $50,000.
According the Finance Committee, Geithner had to pay the IRS a total of $48,268 in taxes and interest.
He resolved part of the underpayments — $16,732 with interest — after an IRS audit in 2006 of his returns for 2003 and 2004. Another $25,970 was discovered as the Obama transition team vetted him for Treasury secretary, according to the panel. The Finance Committee staff discovered an additional $5,566 in taxes and interest that Geithner owed. He recently amended his returns for 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006, the committee said in a memorandum released to the media.
Overnight Camp
Among the mistakes the committee staff identified were Geithner’s decision to classify the cost of sleep-away camps as “dependent care” in 2001, 2004 and 2005. An accountant who prepared his 2006 tax return warned Geithner that the expense wasn’t allowable “but he did not file amended returns at the time to correct the prior years,” the Finance Committee said.
No one should be nominated or confirmed to the Department of the Treasury who has had trouble paying their taxes. Treasury employees’ tax records need to be impeccable. It’s common sense and it really makes a person wonder why Obama and Democrats put so much trust in people, to run the Treasury Department, who have evaded, cheated, and made significant mistakes with their own taxes. People get fined and or thrown in jail every day for doing what Geithner did, but apparently Obama’s administration doesn’t have to follow the same rules as we do. In fact, appointing tax evaders seems to be Obama’s specialty and he’s in the process of doing it again.
From an AP writer at Foxal.com:
President Barack Obama’s choice for a top job in the Treasury Department did not disclose all of her late tax payments until she was repeatedly prodded by Senate investigators, a congressional report issued Wednesday said. Obama’s nominee for undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, Lael Brainard, is the fifth presidential nominee to reveal tax issues during the congressional vetting process.
Brainard was late in paying real estate taxes in 2005, 2006 and 2007 on property in Northern Virginia, according to the report by the Senate Finance Committee staff.
The report also challenges the accuracy of a deduction Brainard claimed for running an office from her home. The challenge led Brainard to reduce the deduction on her 2008 return, though she declined to adjust returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007, telling committee staff she used a reasonable method to calculate the deductions.
Brainard paid most of the late property taxes before she was nominated, in March. However, she told the committee that she realized after her nomination that her 2008 property taxes had not been paid. They were paid in September, the report said.
But the committee’s top Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is unhappy that the committee staff had to submit 10 sets of questions to Brainard before getting complete information about the late payments.
Whether they purposefully cheat or honestly forget to pay their taxes for three years in a row, it doesn’t matter. People who cannot pay their own taxes accurately should be nowhere near the Treasury Department.
