Tax Update Blog: Permalink

« Previous · Tax Update Blog Home · Next »

Equal justice, Treasury style

February 05, 2009

Tim Geithner screwed up his taxes. When caught, he wrote a check for the taxes, without penalties, for the years not yet past the statute of limitations. He then became head of the Treasury, which makes him second only to the President in the tax administration chain of command.

How does it go for lesser Treasury employees when they botch their taxes? Like this:

Had Geithner been working at the IRS, here is what he could have expected for being suspected of shorting the government tens of thousands of dollars in payroll taxes: He might have been rousted from bed before dawn in a commotion that terrified his children and embarrassed his wife when it awoke the neighbors. He would have been treated like a scheming criminal and, while not subjected to what the Bush administration euphemistically called "enhanced interrogation techniques," he would have been scared enough to suffer a stroke or heart attack, like some of those grilled by the agents from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

This is from David Cay Johnston's Tax Notes column ($link), reproduced this week with permission of Tax Analysts by the TaxProf. Read the whole thing.

      Bookmark: del.icio.us • Digg • reddit