It is amazing to me that a person could be nominated as Treasury Secty which includes running the IRS, and have made this kind of blunder in his tax reporting.
This isn't something that a person who is even remotely familiar with the tax law would do. The error, which is common amongst the uninformed, is systemic, which indicates he just didn't have a clue about the rules. Then, not paying the taxes after the assessment, you have to wonder what this guy's financial situation is that HE is going to be the person in charge of all these billions.
If he can't manage his own financial affairs any better than this, he should be out.
It is interesting that his '01 and '02 tax year would have been closed by statute at this time and that there really is not a way for him to have properly paid that $26K in taxes, penalty and interest unless the assessment was made timely by the IRS. If additional assessments are closed by statute on a tax year, you cannot pay amounts due as described; they would simply be credited to a different tax year.
This thing is fishy, in part, because of the payment shortly before his nomination, which makes it totally clear he knew he had a problem and rushed to try and square it away. The question, of course, is would he have paid these taxes off had he not had the nomination coming up and the answer is an obvious "NO".
This administration is scandal-plagued and hasn't even been sworn in yet.
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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.
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. |
