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Double-dipping in Dallas
March 03, 2009
So another Obama nominee has tax problems. I especially like the way Ronald Kirk, nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, handled speaking fees from his college -- he donated them back to the college.
The correct way to handle that would be to include them in income and deduct them on schedule A. This would leave him with a net tax cost because of the AGI-based phase-outs that President Obama wants to restore to the tax law. Mr. Kirk most years just ignored both the income and the deduction, but in 2005 he excluded the income and deducted the contribution. Sweet.
The lesson that politicians should draw from this is to not be so smug and self-righteous when criticising businesses for not paying as much in taxes as the politicians would like to receive; it could come back and bite them. Yet the politicians will surely continue to chuck stones from the verandas of their glass mansions.
The TaxProf has a roundup, and TaxGrrrl and Peter Pappas are also on the story.
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