an odd set of omissions for a treasury nominee. TaxProf has the links. [rquoter]Treasury Secretary Nominee Geithner's Tax Problems The Senate Finance Committee this afternoon released thirty pages of documents relating to various adjustments to Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy F. Geithner's tax returns for 2001-2006. The principal issue is his failure to pay self-employment taxes when he worked for the International Monetary Fund, as well as the immigration status of a housekeeper. Perhaps most surprising is that Mr. Geithner prepared his own tax returns in four of the years in question.[/rquoter]
I would love to see the Senate Republicans take a stand on this issue of his preparation of his own tax returns. Keep on digging.....you will hit bottom sometime soon, I know it.
I don't think they should confirm him. I don't want a Treasury Secretary that lied on his taxes. The fact that he owed the government $47,000 before his appointment, then paid $26,000 of that immediately following the appointment. I really don't know what the hell Obama is thinking.
Unless there is some kind of gross malfeasance I don't think it should be a problem. It looks like the guy made some mistakes on his tax forms, and paid them off. No big deal really. That is especially true since the guy is one of the few who actually understands what is going on with the whole bail out thing.
he was probably thinking that Geithner has a brilliant, deserved reputation as a rising star and that his appointment would be lauded, which it was. And that after he becomes Treasury Secretary (which he will) he will execute to the best of his abilities and probably be better than Paulson. What the hell are YOU thinking?
So he is so brilliant he can't fill out a tax form properly, even when specifically instructed that he had to pay self-employment, and told by an accountant that he was doing things inaccurately. So is he a liar or an idiot? It really is that simple. I personally don't want either in an economic position, particularly a guy who either doesn't know anything at all about taxes, or lies about them and turns around and has to oversee the IRS. http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090114/pl_politico/17428
I mistated the amount earlier as $47,000 when it is actually $42,700. The fact that he clearly had plenty of money to pay towards that, and didn't until politically motivated, makes me think that he isn't trustworthy. The mistatements on the tax returns tell me he isn't qualified for the job, regardless of why he made those "mistakes".
I don't really think that the criteria of who gets confirmed should be so impossible that tax form mistakes means automatic disqualification. If it was intentional, and a systematic thing that was a pattern for him then that would be one thing. But it hasn't been shown to be that. Somebody who's brilliant, who actually understands the intricacies of TARP shouldn't be struck down simply because of tax return mistakes that people make all the time. That kind of miniscule type errors leading to non-confirmation will eliminate plenty of qualified folks who would be good for the job and our nation.
Someone that oversees the IRS should have at the very least basic tax knowledge. It is fair to require that of him. I think people want to ignore the truth. I haven't really been critical of any other pick, even though I think he could have done better in a couple.
The question then becomes whether juicystream, for flubbing this number, is a liar or an idiot? Either way, I don't want you determining who oversees the Treasury department.
This is a tricky situation. On one hand, by all accounts, he does understand the ins-and-outs of the bailout situation and all of that. And he's a logical pick from that perspective. On the other hand, I'd love to know: 1. Why the hell he was filling out his own taxes without even the use of basic software. The most basic Turbo Tax will deal with self-employment taxes. It's just not that complicated, especially for someone who lives in the world of finance. 2. Is there a lack of judgment there? Again, why is someone who's going to be head of the Treasury ignorant on one of the most basic taxes that anyone with any self-employment income deals with. Or really, even anyone who's ever gotten an educational stipend or anything like that. And if he truly didn't know how to handle self-employment, what does it say about him that (a) he didn't get an accountant or (b) learn how to do it properly. At the end of the day, I think it will be glossed over because of the importance of the pick right now. But this is a bit ridiculous - it would be no big deal for the Energy Secretary or HUD or something like that. But really? The Treasury Secretary doesn't know how to pay taxes?
God forbid I grab a number off the top of my head. If you can see I went back and corrected myself, and not because anybody asked me too, but because I knew I made a mistake and corrected it. Something this guy did not. He had to have the IRS catch it, fix it, then have Obama tell him to actually pay what he could of it. This is also not a mistake I made year after year. Idiot isn't the word I wanted to use, but It is going against calling him brilliant. If he is brilliant he lied on the returns. I actually think he is intelligent, and that is why I believe he intentionally lied. This isn't a complicated portion of the tax code. It is very cut and dry. I've seen people who aren't brilliant know about self-employment taxes and prepared their returns correctly. How you can't believe this was intentional is beside me. He just chose not to read the lousy four pages of instructions for the dependent care credit. He just chose not to read the documents given to him telling him he had to pay self-employment. You lose all credibility for blindly defending this man. You just need to get over your Obama lovefest. Make him Inspector General and allow him to oversee TARP, but don't put him overseeing the IRS. I think Obama is pretty cocky. He'll probably end up getting Geithner in, so at this point I guess he has reason to be. I wonder why a supposedly transparent team wouldn't release this information, unless he didn't want public backlash to get in the way of him getting appointed. I have no issue with the employing his housekeeper. She had proper work authorization when hired, and he isn't heading up immigration.
Well at least unlike the Richardson nomination, we know Obama's team caught this. Its their decision to go ahead with the pick. I think they made the right decision.
I don't know if I'd call self-employment taxes cut-and-dried. There are lots of things in tax forms where you can justify (to yourself, at least) categorizing an expense a couple of different ways. It may be (without knowing much about his situation) that he disagreed with the IRS about how the rules should apply to his situation. I'm ambivalent on the appointment. If they don't want to confirm him, that's fine.
This wasn't about how to categorize expenses though. This was about not doing them at all despite the IMF providing him documents saying that he had to when he was hired. The instructions specifally say no credit for overnight camps. There wasn't any room for misinterpretation of the rules if he reads the IRS intructions for Form 2441, or the documents provided to him by IMF to know he needed to file a Schedule SE. I'd really like to know how he reported his income(Schedule C or as Other Income). I'm going to look on the bright side and say at least Paulson will be out. He was given way to much power over TARP, and I have to think he can be improved upon.
He is well equipped to do the job, especially with the bail out packages. Of course that doesn't necessarily mean he is an ethical person, the part about him paying off the taxes after being nominated is very troubling. At this point, I'd take a person who can do the job and worry about ethical issues later.
Self-employment taxes are pretty cut & dry though. Once you take out whatever your business expenses, you have to pay taxes in excess of your income taxes on that money - basically, you have to pay both a normal employer and employee's share of Social Security and Medicare taxes. It appears (from what I can tell) that he simply chose to not pay that. There are two options, neither of which is good: 1. He knew about it and chose not to pay, in which case it's illegal. 2. He didn't know, meaning he is an idiot. Not an idiot for a normal person - but an idiot in terms of what a Secretary of Treasury should know.
more a burp than a hiccup I'd say. apparently, he accepted reimbursement for the taxes he didn't pay... next step, throwing up in mouth... [rquoter]Geithner Accepted IMF Reimbursement for Taxes He Didn’t Pay The problem with the treasury secretary-designate’s tax records. By Byron York Although it has been dismissed by some observers as a “hiccup” in an otherwise smooth confirmation process, treasury secretary-designate Timothy Geithner’s failure to pay self-employment taxes during the years he worked at the International Monetary Fund is causing some Republicans on Capitol Hill to ask serious questions about his actions. First among those questions is why he accepted payment from the IMF as restitution for taxes that he had not, in fact, paid. Documents released by the Senate Finance Committee strongly suggest that Geithner knew, or should have known, what he was doing when he did not pay self-employment taxes in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. After his failure to pay was discovered, first by the IRS and later during the vetting process, Geithner paid the federal government a total of $42,702 in taxes and interest. The IMF did not withhold state and federal income taxes or self-employment taxes — Social Security and Medicare — from its employees’ paychecks. But the IMF took great care to explain to those employees, in detail and frequently, what their tax responsibilities were. First, each employee was given the IMF Employee Tax Manual. Then, employees were given quarterly wage statements for the specific purpose of calculating taxes. Then, they were given year-end wage statements. And then, each IMF employee was required to file what was known as an Annual Tax Allowance Request. Geithner received all those documents. The tax allowance has turned out to be a key part of the Geithner situation. This is how it worked. IMF employees were expected to pay their taxes out of their own money. But the IMF then gave them an extra allowance, known as a “gross-up,” to cover those tax payments. This was done in the Annual Tax Allowance Request, in which the employee filled out some basic information — marital status, dependent children, etc. — and the IMF then estimated the amount of taxes the employee would owe and gave the employee a corresponding allowance. At the end of the tax allowance form were the words, “I hereby certify that all the information contained herein is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and that I will pay the taxes for which I have received tax allowance payments from the Fund.” Geithner signed the form. He accepted the allowance payment. He didn’t pay the tax. For several years in a row. According to an analysis released by the Senate Finance Committee, Geithner “wrote contemporaneous checks to the IRS and the State of Maryland for estimated [income] tax payments” that jibed exactly with his IMF statements. But he didn’t write checks for the self-employment tax allowance. Then, according to the committee analysis, “he filled out, signed and submitted an annual tax allowance request worksheet with the IMF that states, ‘I wish to apply for tax allowance of U.S. Federal and State income taxes and the difference between the “self-employed” and “employed” obligation of the U.S. Social Security tax which I will pay on my Fund income.” In a conversation today with sources on Capitol Hill who are familiar with the situation, I asked, “Was Geithner made whole for tax payments that he didn’t make?” “Yes,” one source answered. “He was getting the money. He was being paid a tax allowance to pay him for tax payments that he should have made but had not.” Geithner paid his 2003 and 2004 obligations after an IRS audit. He paid his 2001 and 2002 obligations after he was nominated to be treasury secretary. The Obama transition team argues that Geithner simply slipped up, saying Tuesday that Gieithner “mistakenly had not paid self-employment taxes” for the years in question. In a closed-door meeting with Senate Finance Committee members on Tuesday, Geithner explained his failure to pay the self-employment taxes as an oversight. In the days before his confirmation hearing, senators are going to want to know more about how that happened. [/rquoter]
agreed- i was self-employed for 10 years. i made a similar mistake in my first return, but caught it before filing, and corrected it before i mailed the return. he was getting reimbursed for the taxes- what did he think the extra money was for? kick him to the curb- i don't care how qualified he may otherwise be. the law applies equally to all, or it aplies to no one.
Rush: "Bill Richardson had to withdraw. Obama's education nominee cannot speak proper grammar. The Treasury nominee doesn't pay taxes. The nominee for attorney general worked in the pardon office, and he didn't know anything about pardons. Obama's top terrorism advisor was involved in a security breach. We've got more scandals here during the transition than most presidencies have in one term!"
