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TED STEVENS: WHERE ARE THE TAX CHARGES?

July 29, 2008

Senator Ted Stevens, one of the masterminds of the aborted "Bridge To Nowhere" in Alaska, has been indicted on charges of failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in "gifts" from an Alaska company on Senate financial disclosure reports. From the indictment:

It was a part of the scheme that STEVENS, while during that same time period that he was concealing his continuing receipt of things of value from ALLEN and VECO from 1999 to 2006, received and accepted solicitations for multiple official actions from ALLEN and other VECO employees, and knowing that STEVENS could and did use his official position and his office on behalf of VECO during that same time period. These solicitations for official action, some of which were made directly to STEVENS, included the following topics: (a) funding requests and other assistance with certain international VECO projects and partnerships, including those in Pakistan and Russia; (b) requests for multiple federal grants and contracts to benefit VECO, its subsidiaries, and its business partners, including grants from the National Science Foundation to a VECO subsidiary; and (c) assistance on both federal and state issues in connection with the effort to construct a natural gas pipeline from Alaska's North Slope Region.

If the allegations are true, I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent explanation, though one doesn't come immediately to mind. Perhaps he could argue that he didn't omit any "gifts" from the forms. The tax law requires "disinterested generosity" to be a gift, rather than taxable income. I can see it now: "Judge, it was for services rendered. I was bought and paid for, fair and square. I was telling the truth when I said it wasn't a gift." I don't think that would score a lot of points, though.

If he accepted the goodies as alleged, it would be a stretch to say that they were gifts, which can be excluded from taxable income, rather than taxable bribes. Unless VECO gives hundreds of thousands of dollars of presents to other old guys in Alaska who aren't public officials, of course. It would be remarkable if he omitted such "gifts" from his Senate disclosures but scrupulously put them on his 1040. Maybe that's something the Feds are holding in reserve.

Via Instapundit.

Tags: tax crime.

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