NY-Sen: Harold Ford -- Either A Non-New Yorker ... Or A Tax Dodger?

by Steve Singiser
DailyKos

Fri Feb 12, 2010

With the disastrous campaign rollout for Indiana Republican Dan Coats this past two weeks, it looked like someone had finally eclipsed former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford Jr. for the title of worst campaign rollout in the 2010 campaign cycle.

Apparently, Harold is not letting his title go without a fight:

Earlier this week, John Cook of Gawker asked the campaign of Harold Ford of Tennessee, Merrill Lynch, the DLC, NBC and the Park Avenue Regency whether Ford, despite living in Manhattan since 2007, had ever filed a state tax return.

It took a few days, but Ford's LIEberman flack Tammy Sun got back to Cook with the shocking answer -- "No."

Ford evidently claimed to work entirely out of Merrill Lynch's office in Nashville (where there is no income tax), and arranged to have his untold multi-million dollars in salary and bonuses paid there.

There is simply no good direction for Ford to go on this one. Ford has built his entire campaign apparatus in New York (where he is flirting with a primary challenge to freshman Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand) on the premise that he left Tennessee for his "new home" in New York City a few years back. Either he lied about that, and has never left Tennessee except to make a few bucks, or he is a "transplant to New York" who has evaded taxes.

(More here.)