Obama’s Treasury Secretary: Tax rules for thee, but not for me; Update: Link to Senate Finance Cmte docs added
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Pssst…did you take care of that problem yet?
They were just honest mistakes, really.
And I’m sure the Obama IRS would be as charitable with you or me as Team Obama is being with Timothy Geithner if we used the same explanation for failing to pay self-employment taxes:
President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to run the Treasury Department and lead the economic rescue effort disclosed to senators Tuesday that he failed to pay $34,000 in taxes from 2001 to 2004, a last-minute complication in an otherwise smooth path to confirmation.
Timothy Geithner paid most of the past-due taxes days before Obama announced his nomination in November, an Obama transition official said. The unpaid taxes were discovered by Obama’s transition team while investigating Geithner’s background, the official said.
The transition official requested anonymity because the source was not authorized to discuss Geithner’s situation.
Obama reiterated his support Tuesday for Geithner as senators who are considering the appointment quizzed Geithner behind closed doors.
“He’s dedicated his career to our country and served with honor, intelligence and distinction,” incoming White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. “That service should not be tarnished by honest mistakes, which, upon learning of them, he quickly addressed.”
Geithner failed to pay self-employment taxes for money he earned while working for the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003, the transition official said. In 2006, the IRS notified him that he owed $14,847 in self-employment taxes and $2,383 in penalties from 2003 and 2004.
Transition officials discovered last fall that Geithner also had not paid the taxes in 2001 or 2002. He paid $25,970 in taxes and interest for those years several days before Obama announced his nomination, the transition official said.
Oh, wait. There’s more. Geithner somehow overlooked the fact that his immigrant housekeeper’s work authorization papers had expired. Ghost of Zoe Baird:
Transition officials discovered last fall that Geithner also had not paid the taxes in 2001 or 2002. He paid $25,970 in taxes and interest for those years several days before Obama announced his nomination, the transition official said.
Geithner also didn’t realize a housekeeper he paid in 2004 and 2005 did not have current employment documentation as an immigrant for the final three months she worked for him, the transition official said.
Quick! Pass that amnesty bill now! Or maybe she’s shacked up with Obama’s illegal alien aunt already…
***
Update: The Senate Finance Committee posted the documents related to Geithner’s “mistakes” here. They show that despite being informed of his tax responsibilities and given an employee tax manual and annual tax allowance request forms, Geithner still failed to pay years of self-employment and FICA taxes.
***
Update: Well, it turns out that Geithner’s housekeeper got her green card. Nice to have friends in high places.
Allah adds:
Geithner paid his back taxes for 2003 and 2004 when the IRS notified him (in 2006), but not until November 21 of this past year — coincidentally, the very day he was named Treasury appointee — did he pay them for 2001 and 2002. Frankly, I like the idea of a tax cheat as Treasury Secretary in this environment; it makes the thought of him spending trillions of taxpayer dollars on new stimulus bills and bailouts that much sweeter.
Somehow these missteps are supposed to threaten his appointment but not the fact that, as president of the New York Federal Reserve, he oversaw the meltdown on Wall Street.
Ace of Spades: “Wesley Snipes just emailed me to say he too ‘forgot’ to pay his taxes, and would have been reminded to pay them, if only Obama had named him IRS Collector in Chief.”
And a reminder from John Berlau on the more fundamental reasons to balk at a Geithner appointment:
It’s not a case of Geithner being too liberal; there are choices to the Left of Geithner that would not be cause for the specific concerns his nomination raises. Rather, the problem with Geithner is that appointing him appears to be scarcely different from reappointing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
Based on his orchestration of much of this year’s financial bailouts in his current post, Geithner would be “more of the same” of the worst aspects of the Bush administration — more bailouts, more lack of transparency in the bailouts, and more corporate welfare.
As head of the New York Fed, Geithner has been, in The Washington Post’s words “a primary architect of the Bush administration’s response to the financial crisis,” and “has worked closely with [Paulson]to devise responses to the most critical events of the market turmoil.”
Other than organizing bailouts, however, Geithner’s resume is quite thin compared to that of others who have held the office for which he has been nominated. As liberal columnist Robert Kuttner noted recently in TheAmerican Prospect, Geithner “has neither a doctorate in economics nor an M.B.A.”
Also, Geithner has never been a corporate leader, nor an economics professor with a trail of published academic papers. Instead, Geithner’s career has been almost entirely in the bowels of the bureaucracy. He started at the Treasury Department in 1988 as a career civil servant before being appointed under-secretary of the Treasury for international affairs in 1999.
Geithner would not have even been under consideration had he not come to prominence in circumventing rules to arrange the bailout of Bear Stearns’ creditors earlier this year, with $29 billion in backing from U.S taxpayers.
According to accounts from both conservative columnist Robert Novak and the financial magazine Conde Nast Portfolio, Geithner was the main instigator of the bailout, getting Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to sign on to his handiwork.
The Bear deal faced criticism from the Left and Right as both a stretch of the Fed’s power and a precedent that spread “moral hazard,” thus leading to the further bailouts down the line — bailouts that Geithner would be heavily involved in, working hand-in glove with Paulson.
But in addition to the questionable results of bailouts in saving the economy, also troubling has been the Federal Reserve’s lack of openness when it has put taxpayer money on the line, an area where Geithner shares much of the blame.
A recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal noting that “Geithner was the driving force behind the government takeover of insurance giant AIG” also criticized “the New York Fed’s lack of transparency, both about the nature of the ‘systemic risk’ that required the takeover and why it was superior to bankruptcy.”
Geithner’s judgment has also been questioned with recent reports of alleged favoritism toward Citigroup — the financial firm where Geithner’s mentor, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, serves as a director and senior counselor.
According to a Bloomberg News report, Geithner unsuccessfully pushed for Citi to take over troubled banker Wachovia Corp. with government guarantees of billions of dollars, even after Wells Fargo & Co. offered to take over the company at no cost to taxpayers and a higher price for Wachovia shareholders.
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Oh Death, where is thy sting?
Oh brother here we go again! Poor bho, who has he named doesn’t have some problem of some sort?
L
Thump, thimp
AHHHHHH…. typo
Thump, thump
Democrats have absolutely no ethical standards or moral codes by which they conduct themselves.
If they did, none of them would support or enable those of them who broke those standards or codes.
As it is, it seems to be a matter of course that adultery, embezzlement, bribery, tax evasion, and lying are all acceptable behavior for the members of their party.
Add to those, hypocrisy; probably the worst of all.
I’ll keep this in mind if, I ever get audited.
So, working for the IMF is considered…Dare, I say…self-employment ?
These people live in a different world from Mainstram America. By “these people” I mean Democrats and their enablers on the Left. The law is merely an inconvenient distraction that they deal with only to appease the gods of liberal decorum and only when the public is watching.
This is totally beyond belief. Anyone else (read Conservative or Republican) and the Dems would have them swinging from lampposts in the public square. And Joe Citizen would have been in jail by now.
Silly of me, I did not know he is the owner of the IMF. I would have made the assumption he was an employee of said organization…What was I thinking >
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along…
So, is this only a problem for judicial nominees? You’d think it would be more so for a treasury guy. Aren’t they supposed to know something about money?
It’s all a matter of expectations. DemocRats are expected to be crooked.
And they never fail to satisfy.
BTW, Why do they all employ illegals ? Where do I get a cheap, good-looking…” housekeeper ” Oh, right, I can’t afford any kind of house-keeper…My bad…
av8tr said it all…
OT
Dems in House preparing The Mother of All Gun Control Laws
national licensing and registration, retroactive to guns you already own.
Except for this…
http://www.rescuetees.com/cgi-bin/ms2/rescuetees/display?c=Patches&q=PA743
In what human land fill did Obama dig up these pigs. This country is about to choke on its own vomit.
In what human land fill did Obama dig up these pigs. This country is about to choke on its own vomit.
My above link is for the Inaugural Sharpshooter Patch…Buy one for your favorite Cop, or EMT…
Ed Mahmoud: What is this boner Dems have with gun control?
Guns do kill people… etc etc
However, Liberals DO kill babies (aka choice).
THAT needs to be “regulated and controlled,” if not outright eliminated for 95% of the cases.
What guns????
How many times do I have to tell you that they are democrats so they don’t have to obey the rules.
CORRECTION: Guns DON’T kill people… etc etc
Democrats feel no guilt for what they do wrong.
Instead, they express “regret” when they are caught.
Does Bill Clinton feel any guilt over the DNA sample for Monica Lewinsky? No, just regret he was caught.
If The DWI Killer felt any remorse for killing Mary Jo Kopechne, he would have resigned from the Senate. He just feels regret it kept him from being a viable candidate in 1980, even against a massive failure like Jimmy Carter.
Spitzer has made it clear he feels not a seconds guilt over cheating on his wife with high priced hookers, his only regret, he was forced to resign.
It is related to the fact that political affiliation and regular attendance at religious services are closely related.
Ethically challenged ? Wait for more Obonics…
Gun control ? Carl Rowan…
Just remember, They do not pass laws to prevent them from acting; They pass laws to keep us from acting.
And congress plans to investigate bush after he leaves office. Sounds like the real problem going forward is a little closer than texas.
Spitzer’s major offense to liberals is, he wanted to have sex without a condom.
It’s happening, the government is about to take away our guns on it’s way to total submission by the populace. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Way closer, sonofdy…
It’s the russian way…Use the people to get what you want, then c;obber any who disagree with you.
jeff2161: The military is sounding like it will have to decide which part of the enlistment oath it will follow. Sad but its coming.
clobber
Doesn’t anyone in the Obama camp know the old adage about not hiring a fox to guard the hen house?!?!?!?!?
And, we too will have to determine when, it’s time to start protecting our rights. The English Tea tax was not that large…
MikeM: Of course, they do. They graduated from elite, ivy-league schools with law degrees.
Don’t completely freak out. There are a lot of pro-gun Dems from more rural districts. This is one of the places where there may be a schism in the Democratic party
The military swore to defend the United States from all foes; foreign, or domestic, hope I quoted correctly.
What, and go against the one and his liberal army?
Don’t make me laugh.
I’m praying for an epidemic of sanity.
“When the people fear their government there is tyranny.
When the government fears the people there is liberty.” Thomas Jefferson
Note which comes first.
We had a few dems in Michigan who felt the same but, marching orders kept them in line. The 2/2 party system has run it’s course and, we are faced with either no, or little choice. It’s all window-dressing.
Its not a problem.. its an ‘issue’. Problems have negative connotations.
sonofdy: I would dearly love to see a high-ranking officer fall on THAT grenade. Country first ! What does the code say about insane commanders? Just curious…
Jeff, that’s “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”
Then there’s some stuff about obeying the orders of some people, etc.
Can we have the President relieved of duty?
Hmmm, one of 5 men dies the next four years, a solid 5 vote Marxist majority on SCOTUS, Reid and Pelosi amending rules to limit the rights of the minority party to amend or debate legislation, and a 59 vote plus any RINO fillibuster proof Senate majority.
And now, Obama will know if you have a gun, and how many, and what type, and if you don’t register that gun, BATF could get a search warrant, find it, and you’re doing 2 years in a Federal pen.
It is 1932, and aging President Bismarck is about to hand over power to a new Fuhrer.
Dexter Alarious: I love that last paragraph…lol
BTW If this does pass and they order me to find peoples guns, I am not finding one. damn. gun. Not one. And if they tell me to guard people found with such weapons, I pledge to be the worst guard in the history of poltical purges.
Who the heck would register a fire-arm? It’s nobody’s business but, mine. Unless, I commit an unlawful act with it.
Sounds ex post facto to me. These idiots don’t understand the Constitution and don’t have a clue that the Heller Decision makes this a vain effort. However, not being a trusting soul, I have shared my thoughts on the linked article:
Resistance to unlawful orders is protected under the US Military Code, is it not?
Besides, inefficiency is a hard nut to prove.
True, but you disobey at your own risk.
You’ve got to be damn sure the order is unlawful, or you’re doing hard time.
I think the Demonrats are counting on red blooded/meat and potato/salute the flag type people not getting a license and registering their guns.
Then they have magically created a huge class of instant felons, one traffic stop or search warrant away from prison, and all these felons who’d lose the franchise, the majority would not be Obama voters.
The ones that do register and get licensed, the licenses need to be renewed on a regular basis. Don’t forget to re-new, or face jail time.
Oh, this is sweet
True dat. IN THIS SENERIO however 2 parts of the oath of enlistment will be in direct conflict with each other. The part to support the constitution and the part to obey the president. Each soldier will have to decide for themselves.
H.R. 45, The Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009 is named for a 16 year old Chicago youth shot to death on a CTA bus.
I am darned curious if he was shot with a legal firearm…
Roger, we used to have a media that took them to task, alas, we have them no more but for Michelle, Powerline, et al. And who knows how long they’ll allow bloggers and talk shows to inform us?
And how much are these “licenses” going to cost? Arm, leg, both? Annually?
Make the red tape excruciating?
THis is nothing more than a backdoor gun ban.
2 words.
FAIRNESS
DOCTRINE
“To whom a license has been issued ” Don’t need one for a Constitutional right.
Don’t need a license to speak, either.
YET
Or, to peaceably assemble; Or, Petition my Government for redress of greivance. See how silly this law is?
I’ve still got a shortwave hidden in the basement so I can tune in “Radio Free Rush” when he has to start transmitting from a barge outside the territorial waters.
Certainly will not, Beg for the privilege of exercising my rights. I’m not afraid of dying; It’s the slow death by a thousand cuts.
You know, Obama hasn’t even taken the oath of office yet and here we are:
1. Finding a replacement for Richardson because of ethical concerns;
2. Discovering that Geithner disn’t pay his taxes — for three years! And that he had an illegal alien as a housekeeper (like about half of Washington, D.C., or NYC.)
3. Seating Obama’s replacement, Burris, appointed as perhaps one of the last meaningful official acts of a corrupt-o-crat Chicago pol from the president’s home patch.
The next four years ought to be interesting. Amazing how the media has stirred to life now that their boy is almost in office.
Good for you, brother. Armageddon is not just about religion.
sonof dy: Keep the faith…For most of us, an oath to protect and defend the United States has real meaning.
Make it easy on yourselves Dems. Adopt the Fair Tax.
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer
Remember the latest Gas-tax proposals with GPS in all vehicles? A competent hacker can send them misleading info quite easily.
This is who they are. Rules for thee but not for me.
Taxes for thee but not for me. Honesty and The Truth is not part of their life. God has been dismissed from the public schools since 1965.
I was thinking of making a list of the top ten honest politicians, but only got to 3, and their all dead!.
“That service should not be tarnished by honest mistakes, which, upon learning of them, he quickly addressed.”
He has REALLY slow reflexes. It took him two years to finish writing that check to the IRS!!! I don’t want someone that slow to react running Treasury.
(sarc on) How unfortunate for him that, just by coincidence, he paid the bill just before his appointment was announced. Now the conservative crazies are going assume he was just trying to clean up his dirty laundry before his confirmation hearing! (sarc off)
Could Minnesota use a third senator?
Well Brownie came under fire (rightly) for being inexperienced and incompetent, but in that case, people sitting on rooftops waiting for the choppers makes good video. The US under water financially is too complicated for the MSM to explain – even if they understood it…so he’ll get a pass.
Meanwhile, over at Labor, Obama’s Labor Secretary Nom refuses to answer a question about whether she supports eliminating the right to a secret ballot in union elections. So much for transparency.
Shhhh!!! Nobody say a peep. There’s lots more of this to come. [Just wait until duh1's past comes back to haunt him.]
I expect all good conservatives to lean back in your seats, take a sip of Dr. Pepper, and have another handful of popcorn.
Remember, we haven’t even gotten to Act 1, Scene 1.
Since the new Treasury Sec’y forgot to pay his taxes for several years does that mean that WE don’t have to either??
“OOPS, sorry, Mr. IRS, just spaced out writting that check but I’ll get around to it real soon–can you send me a booklet on how to go about doing that while you’re at it? Gee, thanks for your understanding.”
Talk about the fox guarding the hen house a tax evader that is self admitted at aiding and abetting an illegal invader is going to be the head of the thugs at the IRS. Is no one surrounding the Marxist in Chief not a felon or self professed enemy of the United States America?
As far as the attempt of this bill by the House Democrats to seize my guns and violate my 2nd Amendment rights my tag line is more than a witty statement:
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE (mo-lone lah-veh) Translation: Come and take them!
We shouldn’t be surprised about this, but as Michelle notes, there’s a more fundamental reason that he concerns me: his commitment to government intervention and his direct hand in bailout mania. We don’t need this man in charge of the purse strings. And ridiculously, he’ll pursue the same economic policies that Bush has espoused the last few months. Is that “change we need,” O-voters? Just a slogan, folks, just a damn empty slogan that will be the downfall of all of us.
I still got the whip marks from the IRS, after they rode my a$$, when I made an honest mistake once! Just once!
oO Obama nominated a guy who can’t even do his own taxes to run the Treasury. Brilliant!!!
Immediately after leaving office, Bush should make a full time job out of criticizing Obama’s every move.
Every corrupt crony, every bad choice, every Obama scandal that comes down the pike.
Carter and Clinton set the standard.
I’ll start:
Obama is the worst president. EVER.
Obama Lied, Freedom Died.
OObama let the recession happen so he could get elected.
Obama hates black people.
Obama hates white people.
Obama hates poor people, esp those in his own family.
Obama knocked up Vera Baker.
Vera Baker is actually Sasha Obama’s mother.
You get it, George, now go!
Don’t worry. It won’t be an issue with Republicans in the Senate. Orrin Hatch said, “I still support him. He’s a very competent guy.”
An Chuck Grassley (the senior Republican on the committee) said that it won’t necessarily disqualify him.
I don’t get it. Is Obama, the prince of hokum, that desperate for psychophants and toadies? Paul Krugman has a Nobel in economics and is as liberal as they get, why not appoint him? I mean it’s not like he’s using it or anything and it would get him out of NYT so what’s the problem? And I thought credentialism was so vital these days. Isn’t Kathleen Parker about to go ballistic on this? Guess not. Dems don’t care, pseudo-cons don’t care, republcans don’t care — as long as he is real articulate like.
My nephew, who keeps up on this gun stuff, said this kid (whose name is on this proposed national registration law):
The kid was killed in gang violence, with a firearm acquired illegally, in a city that bans handguns in a state where it is a felony to carry a loaded firearm outside of hunting or at a firing range.
So OBVIOUSLY a national registration law is going to fix this scenario /sarc off
Screw up, then move up.
What a little momma’s boy. He will do as POTUS to be instructs him. Get all my peoples on the sugar tit.
The government makes me want to puke!
Hmm lets see several years ago when I was still on active duty I made a small $50 dollar error in my taxes. When It was brought to my attention by the IRS I wasnt given any understanding and in fact had to undergo an audit for the 3 previous years. Even though nothing was found the IRS still treated me like a common thief demand immediate payment of the 50, intrest and a penalty. Guess honorable service in the military just doesnt stand up to working for the IMF.
From the WSJ article on this:
This just says it all about this guy.
Perhaps if the government (ie Geithner) were not meddling or causing so many of these crises, he would not have to spend a career managing them.
Jus sayin
Sorry, a bit off topic, but does anyone expect from Obama?
About the time Obama and his wife bought their home, Obama purchased a slice of land from Mrs. Rezko. Obama paid her $104,500 for it, but the land was appraised at $40,500. I read those figures in WaPo article (and an earlier entry on this blog), and the appraisal was specifically mentioned in that article and in an interview with Obama last spring.
What’s the point? Obama paid $64,000 more than the property was worth. You can’t chalk it up to a bad business deal, because he had the appraisal. So where’s Obama’s federal gift tax return (Form 709) reporting the taxable gift. The return would show a small amount of gift tax payable, but no gift tax would be currently payable because the tax payable would be offset by his exemption equivalent amount.
The federal gift tax tracks lifetime taxable gifts. Obama is delinquent in filing the return. Beyond that, the question becomes why is Obama making a $64,000 gift to Rezko’s wife?
My other half got a little behind on taxes and is diligently paying the IRS the taxes due plus interest on an installment agreement (and the amount involved is a lot less than this guy spends on servants).
I suggested to him that he just stiff the IRS for a few years – after all if the president of a Federal Reserve Bank and SecTreas nominee can’t figure out and pay his taxes…
He doesn’t think he could get the same leniency.
Re: the proposed (pre-confiscation) gun law… (and the bailout, looming socialized medicine, looming amnesty, surrender of national sovereignty, etc) – have people in any state started thinking about secession? I don’t think that idea is so far-fetched anymore.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. – Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
On January 14th, 2009 at 1:13 am,
I’m not looking to secede. I figure to run those polecats off or ride ‘em outta town on a rail…after the tar an’ feathers.
ECS