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Nominee tax problems: scandal, or trivial pursuit?

February 06, 2009

While there has been a lot of gleeful piling on related to the Obama nominee tax troubles, there is some dissent. Howard Gleckman at TaxVox says:

In truth, if most of us had our returns picked over this way, we too would be fingered as tax scofflaws, or perhaps as suckers who paid more than we owed.

Reason blogger Katherine Mangu-Ward notes:

Should you be tapped for higher office, this is a brilliant path to shame and ruin for you, your family, your party, your president, and yes, your nanny. Yet for all of your peers, it is simply normal conduct.

Not all tax sins are created equal. The "offense" of Nancy Killefer -- a $298 nanny tax underpayment that she had made good a long time ago -- is laughably trivial, except that it cost Ms. Killefer ner nomination. If sins that trivial disqualify you from office, we might finally achieve a sensibly small government because they won't be able to staff it. The problems of the Labor Department nominee's husband are likewise minor.

The Geithner and Daschle problems are at a different level. Mr. Geithner, who will be in charge of the IRS, after all, should be held to a higher standard. The importance of the Treasury position in the current financial crisis might justify cutting him some slack, but botching his employment taxes on his IMF job after being warned repeatedly and in writing of the issue is the tax equivalent of running red lights all the way through town. At the least it makes you question whether his judgment is all that it is cracked up to be.

Mr. Daschle's problem is significantly worse. Not only did he ignore an issue -- personal use of company cars -- that is constantly asserted against small business owners; he failed to report $80,000 in cash income. Coming from a man who as senator talked loosely about enforcing tax laws "to the letter" and throwing scofflaws in jail, it shows a level of arrogance and hypocrisy that should disqualify him.

Not all tax problems are equal. At the moment the politicians can't distinguish the trivial from the serious. Until that changes, folks wanting a high government office should have their heads examined, not their tax returns.

Related: DASCHING AWAY FROM TAXES

Tags: Daschle.Geithner.Mangu-Ward.TaxVox.

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