A Cabinet of Tax Evaders

I almost felt sorry for President Obama in his first weeks and months in office. He couldn't pick a cabinet member who didn't have unpaid taxes to save his life. Below is a short list of those with troubles:

• Tom Daschle - Head of Health & Human Service Department
• Timothy Geithner - Treasury Secretary
• Charlie Rangel - Chairman of Ways & Means Committee
• Ron Kirk - White House Chief Trade Representative
• Nancy Killefer - Chief White House Performance Officer
  
  

Daschle withdrew his nomination after word leaked out that he had unpaid taxes of over $200,000. Most of that came from a free car and chauffeur service that he used for years without reporting the gifts as income. According to Obama, it was an oversight and he stood by his nomination.

Geithner was appointed as Treasury Secretary (head of the IRS) even after his confirmation hearing revealed that he had unpaid self-employment taxes of $35,000. This was particularly alarming since he had filed a request and received half the taxes owed, yet still did not pay. Beyond the self-employment taxes, he also wrongfully claimed the costs of his children's camp as a dependant care expense. Geithner himself said that the errors were, "careless, and unintentional." He claimed that he used TurboTax which was not equipped to handle self-employment taxes, yet the Obama administration claims it was an attorney who had advised him that he did not owe anything.

Rangel is the current chairman of the Ways & Means Committee which is the committee responsible for writing the nation's tax codes. Earlier this summer, Rangel lead the fight for a 5.4 percent point income tax surcharge and called it "the moral thing to do." Speaking of morals, Mr. Rangel is currently being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for at least six separate issues. One of these issues is the failure to pay federal taxes during the past five years on rental income from a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic. He first blamed his wife for the error because she was the property manager but later blamed a language barrier and even later claimed he had no idea that he had received any income from the villa. Another issue surrounding Rangel (although he claims he didn't know about it) is that a developer of the villa had converted his $52,000 mortgage to an interest free loan - a clear violation of the House rules on gifts.

Nancy Killefer and Ron Kirk's mistakes have been less talked about. Killefer withdrew her nomination after word leaked out about her past tax evasions. In 2005, the District of Columbia placed a lien on her home for failure to pay $900 in state unemployment tax for household help (the Nanny tax). Kirk accepted the position of Trade Representative even though there was controversy surrounding his unpaid taxes too. He owed back taxes of nearly $10,000 for income not reported for speeches given and donations made to his Alma mater.

This is just a brief example of the corruption in Washington. You get caught, you pay up, and you move on as if nothing ever happened. My question is why? Why is the head of the IRS someone that owes approximately $50,000 in back taxes and has taken deductions that were not legally available to him? Why is the chairman for a committee that writes our tax laws under investigation for not paying his? More importantly, why is this perfectly acceptable behavior in Washington? It has been reported that the issues at hand are oversights, gray areas, or confusing aspects of an elaborate U.S. tax code. This is not an acceptable explanation for me. They are evading more in taxes than many Americans make in income. We need a tax system that is more simplified. One that is so simple even a politician can do it!