Michelle Malkin » Geithner, “tax goofs,” and the go-along GOP

Geithner, “tax goofs,” and the go-along GOP

By Michelle Malkin • January 16, 2009 10:00 AM

Looks like our GOP friends are gonna roll!

My column carries the ball forward on the Tim Geithner debacle. Two debacles, really: 1) The serial tax-dodging, ridiculous excuses, and bailout failure of Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary nominee; and 2) Geithner’s go-along apologists in the Senate GOP. Underscoring the theme of my column today? Read this headline: Key sen. sees no Republican opposition to Geithner.

The confirmation hearing was pushed back until next Wednesday. You have time to make your views known. Contact Mitch McConnell’s office via Twitter here or by phone: 202-224-2541.

***
A government of the goofs, by the goofs, for the goofs
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2008

There’s an old saying from the bowels of the Beltway bureaucracy: “Screw up, move up.” Rewarding failure is an immutable trait of the bipartisan Washington political culture. Just ask Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary nominee Tim Geithner and the Senate Republicans who are blindly standing by him.

The Senate Finance Committee revealed this week that Geithner failed to pay some $43,000 in federal self-employment taxes for four separate years – and only coughed up $26,000 of that debt when he was named Obama’s Treasury Secretary-designate in November. The brilliant and meticulous Geithner didn’t catch the lapses. The Internal Revenue Service and Team Obama’s vetters did.

Recall that Joe the Plumber, an average guy with no Ivy League degrees in business or finance, was crucified for his $1,182.98 Ohio tax lien (the state had sent a notification to a prior residence he had vacated). One might give a common man some leeway for making common mistakes. But Tim Geithner is no “common” man – and “$43,000 in unpaid taxes is a common occurrence” simply does not wash as a credible alibi. Supporters have dubbed Geithner “too big to fail.” Try “too smart to care.”

Geithner is a Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins-educated president of the New York Federal Reserve bank who, according to his extensive biography, has also “studied Japanese and Chinese, and has lived in East Africa, India, Thailand, China, and Japan.” Apparently, he has been too engrossed in his foreign language studies and too busy traveling abroad to pay attention to crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s of his household records. In addition to his failure to pay four years’ worth of federal taxes (you try getting away with that without getting thrown behind bars!), Geithner also illegally employed an immigrant maid for three months after her work authorization papers had expired.

But wait. That’s not all, folks Geithner’s employer at the time of his serial tax-dodging was the International Monetary Fund. The agency reimburses its employees for their self-employment taxes. The allowance was made to keep IMF and World Bank workers’ salaries on par with other foreign peers. IMF employees receive an Employee Tax Manual outlining their obligations. (Maybe if it were written in Japanese or Chinese, Geithner would have paid better attention?)

Employees also proactively file an Annual Tax Allowance Request promising to “pay the taxes for which I have received tax allowance payments.” The Senate Finance Committee released one of those forms signed by Geithner. A Senate source confirmed to National Review’s Byron York that Geithner pocketed the cash: “He was getting the money. He was being paid a tax allowance to pay him for tax payments that he should have made but had not.”

IRS employment application packets notify potential workers that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration vets all candidates and current employees “who have violated or are violating laws, rules, or regulations related to the performance of their duties.” President-elect Obama is standing by a nominee who would oversee the IRS, but might not even qualify for a lesser job at the agency. This is insanity.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs calls Geithner’s transgressions “honest mistakes.” Media outlets like the Associated Press have attempted to downplay his snubbing of the law as mere “tax goofs.” (When Democrats like Geithner, Al Franken, and Charlie Rangel fail to pay up what they legally owe, they’re just “goofs.” When you or I object to forking over more than what we’re already paying, Vice President Joe Biden calls us unpatriotic.)

Even more maddeningly, Senate Republicans Orrin Hatch and Lindsay Graham insist on defending Geithner as “very competent” and “the right guy.” Never mind Geithner’s atrocious role in fostering the spending binge of financial giant Citgroup and engineering the teetering company’s $52 billion federal bailout. Those who take his tax evasion and record of failure seriously are guilty of “think[ing] in small political terms,” Graham lectured.

Tell that to the millions of self-employed entrepreneurs across the country who sweat bullets paying their quarterlys and ensuring that their papers are in order down to the hundredth decimal place. It’s fecklessness like this that has earned Washington Republicans “the Stupid Party” moniker.

Screw up, move up: It’s the Washington way.

Posted in: Subprime crisis, Tim Geithner

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#101

On January 17th, 2009 at 10:40 am, conservativesRus said:

#
On January 16th, 2009 at 8:49 pm, havok said:
I checked on Turbo Tax and it did not offer a ‘opt out of taxes’ option.

#86
On January 16th, 2009 at 9:28 pm, Jeff2161 said:
Havoc : You must have the conservative version.

Actually I think he has the “gainfully employed” version – or maybe the “non-government teat” version.
The two versions just mentioned certainly have that box.
#102

On January 17th, 2009 at 10:42 am, Jeff2161 said:

You can judge a persons character by the company they keep. Obama must not know anyone who behaves ethically.
#103

On January 17th, 2009 at 10:43 am, conservativesRus said:

correction – the two version mentioned above do NOT have that box. The “complimentary” versions do have the box.
#106

On January 17th, 2009 at 12:01 pm, southcoast said:

yea
#107

On January 17th, 2009 at 1:18 pm, Lee Hazel said:

A Criminal Conspiracy

Michelle, it couldn’t be said better. This guy is a creep.

We are very shortly going to be living under the auspices of the Greatest Criminal Conspiracy in world history. The gang of “conspirators” consist of the Obama Transition Team, his Cabinet appointees, background characters such as George Soros, and the bulk of our United States Congress.

This Cabal is aided and abetted by a totally corrupt court system and equally corrupt state and municipal Governments.

We The People have just demonstrated that we are incapable of governing ourselves. We have listened to the idiots in the media and from the maniacal left and voted for even more of the likes of Frank, Schumer , Murtha, Reid ,Pelosi, McCain (almost), Dodd, Biden, Obama, et. al.

If you think me harsh, first answer the question: where did over $8Trillion of American wealth go. Not only that but they are preparing to add $2Trillion or more to that figure. This totals together to approximately $33,000.00 per Man, woman, and Child in the United States.

This money is being stolen from the people and is being done against the express wishes of the people. They have repeatedly been against these “bailouts” when ever asked. No gang of crooks in history has ever come anywhere close to achieving this level of outright thievery.

PC is Thought Control
LEE
#108

On January 17th, 2009 at 1:56 pm, MacEamonn said:

I am of course not implying by the following that anyone should fail to pay their taxes.

Possible letter to the IRS

To whom it may concern,

Please cease all withholding of Federal Income, Social Security, and Medicare Taxes from my pay effect immediately. I will also no longer report my income to you. I will be happy to resume our normal relationship (as well as pay all back taxes) as soon as the President of the United States appoints me as a member of his cabinet. I would especially like to be Secretary of (indicate your preferred department here).

Thank you,

(Your Name Here)
#110

On January 17th, 2009 at 4:15 pm, Savage24 said:

This guy couldn’t get a lower interest loan from his own bank. God I love that bunch in Washington.
#111

On January 17th, 2009 at 8:40 pm, jds13 said:

As tax errors go this one actually was understandable. He got a W-2 from which no employment taxes were withheld. He had to pay not only his share (which as I understand it he did) but also the employer’s share. It’s a unique situation in the tax code… Basically, even though he got a W-2, he should have treated it as a 1099 and filed a Schedule C. TurboTax doesn’t warn you about this. Accountants Geithner hired missed this twice.

The real problem is that when his error was caught by the IRS, he didn’t voluntarily go back and fix all the previous years’ returns, with interest. This failure to make a good faith effort to clear it up as soon as the problem emerged is what disqualifies Geithner from the job at Treasury.

The really real problem is that the business of Congress is selling favors under the tax code, and this has created a 65,000 page monstrosity that no one understands and that makes any kind of planning or sensible economic activity impossible. It will only gets worse.
#112

On January 19th, 2009 at 10:51 pm, JustAThought said:

Hey hey hey! What’s the big surprise or problem here? Just Chicago politics as usual. Get used to this kind of thing folks. We’re in for four years or so of just this kind of crap.