At tax time, cases like Geithner's raise pointed questions
Some taxpayers -- and even some in the IRS -- resent what appears to be a double standard that favors powerful people like Cabinet nominees.
By Tom Hamburger and Ralph Vartabedian
LA Times
April 15, 2009
Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington — The Treasury secretary, who oversees the IRS, initially didn't pay all his taxes. Neither did five other top nominees for the Obama administration or their spouses. Now, as tonight's tax deadline looms, some Americans are rhetorically asking: What would have happened to me if I had done the same thing?
The resentful reaction to such disclosures resonates not just among the anti-tax people organizing protests around the country today, but in low- and high-income neighborhoods of cities like Los Angeles -- and even in the hallways of the Internal Revenue Service.
The most criticized example of nominees with tax problems has been Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who owed $34,000 in payroll and Social Security taxes from 2001 and 2002, and didn't pay all of it until Obama nominated him. But five other nominees had similar tax issues -- as recently as two weeks ago, when Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's pick to run Health and Human Services, admitted she had discovered she owed the Treasury $7,070 from 2005 to 2007.
"Our members are upset and angry," said Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, referring to concern bubbling up inside the IRS over unusually strict rules that can cost IRS agents their jobs if they make a mistake, whereas Geithner and others are treated with relative leniency. In addition, the Geithner case is making the work of IRS compliance agents a bit harder, she said.
(More here.)
By Tom Hamburger and Ralph Vartabedian
LA Times
April 15, 2009
Reporting from Los Angeles and Washington — The Treasury secretary, who oversees the IRS, initially didn't pay all his taxes. Neither did five other top nominees for the Obama administration or their spouses. Now, as tonight's tax deadline looms, some Americans are rhetorically asking: What would have happened to me if I had done the same thing?
The resentful reaction to such disclosures resonates not just among the anti-tax people organizing protests around the country today, but in low- and high-income neighborhoods of cities like Los Angeles -- and even in the hallways of the Internal Revenue Service.
The most criticized example of nominees with tax problems has been Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who owed $34,000 in payroll and Social Security taxes from 2001 and 2002, and didn't pay all of it until Obama nominated him. But five other nominees had similar tax issues -- as recently as two weeks ago, when Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's pick to run Health and Human Services, admitted she had discovered she owed the Treasury $7,070 from 2005 to 2007.
"Our members are upset and angry," said Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, referring to concern bubbling up inside the IRS over unusually strict rules that can cost IRS agents their jobs if they make a mistake, whereas Geithner and others are treated with relative leniency. In addition, the Geithner case is making the work of IRS compliance agents a bit harder, she said.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home