Posted by
Always To The Right on Friday, January 30, 2009 8:17:30 PM
ABCNEWS: HHS Nominee Daschle Faces Tax Questions... Developing...
During the vetting process to become HHS secretary, Daschle corrected
the tax violation, voluntarily paying $101,943 in back taxes plus
interest, working with his accountant to amend his tax returns for 2005
through 2007.
So far, the incoming Barack Obama administration has given us a tax
cheat/incompetent to run the IRS (Tim Geithner) and at least three
lobbyists to regulate their industries (William Lynn, Mark Patterson,
Neal Wolin). Now we’re back to tax evasion, and once again it’s a major Cabinet appointment
Daschle’s team claims that the former Senator deserves the credit
for revealing the problem himself. Daschle did report this — but only
after getting picked as HHS Secretary. If that sounds familiar, it’s
because that’s when Geithner suddenly discovered that he owed Uncle Sam
money too, only Daschle paid back a lot more: over $100,000.
How many more people will Obama nominate who either are too
incompetent or too dishonest to declare all of their income and pay all
of their taxes? Is this the new career track for tax cheats — a
Cabinet office?
Update: Apparently, Daschle can’t even use the Geithner “I’m so stupid” excuse, as ABC also discovers that he flat-out failed to report direct income:
The
report indicates that Daschle’s failure to pay more than $101,000 taxes
on the car and driver a wealthy friend let him use from 2005 through
2007 is not the only tax issue the former Senate Majority Leader has
been dealing with since his December nomination prompted a more
thorough examination of his income tax returns.
Mr. Daschle also didn’t report $83,333 in consulting income in 2007.
Plus, Daschle claimed almost $15,000 in charitable donations over
three years to organizations that don’t qualify for the deduction.
How many Americans make so much money that they could forget about $83,000 of it in a year?