No. It’s because he has at least 5 zeroes behind his estimated net worth. When you get to that level, you can have any letter, or combination therof, behind your name and it gets you off the hook for a lot of things you and I would be rotting in prison for.
Really? Tom’s rich? I never paid a lot of attention to him, he being about as radical as warm milk, but I thought he was of relatively modest means.
Here’s the difference between Lyndon Johnson and a current member of Congress who votes for social programs and then doesn’t pay his taxes. The difference is, Tom Daschle believes in the cause 100%. He doesn’t have a problem with the cause, he has a problem with personally making the sacrifice. That wasn’t the case with Lyndon Johnson…in fact, he kind of did the opposite.
Yeah. Go ahead and circle the partisan wagon and protect your own.
That’s about all you’re good for.
This Washington Post article makes the matter seem pretty minor.
According to the facts in the article, about the worst that can be said from what we know so far is that he should have recognized the tax implications of the car service and should have asked his accountant who prepares his taxes about it earlier. The consulting fee issue was the result of a clerical error on the part of the equity firm and the charitable contributions are a question of the sufficiency of documentation and what his accountant decided to deduct.
Now, I don’t know what the nature of the clerical error was. Maybe he thought the taxes had already been paid or something? Perhaps someone with specialized knowledge in this area could speculate.
Are people up-in-arms about the fact that he didn’t know the tax implications of borrowing a car?
Normally, when you do work for a company, they send you either a W2 or a 1099 in January. This will also be the income that the company reports for you to the IRS and the state tax board.
If the company messed up the form, they might have underreported the income to the IRS. In that case, you could file your taxes without reporting the extra income and it might be difficult for the IRS to catch, because they initially rely on the W2 or 1099 to determine your income. However, you still owe taxes on money you earn, not just what is reported, so even if your employer underreports, you still have to report and pay taxes on all the income-and you should contact the company to correct the error.
If that’s what happened, then I’m not as upset about this as before. If you don’t manage your own finances, then this isn’t something you’d personally catch right away. It’s important, though, that you have a procedure in place to catch this kind of error. And I’m kind of suspecting that he didn’t have adequate procedures in place because the error doesn’t seem to have been caught for over a year. That makes me wonder if he’s competent to manage a large organization.
Of course, I’m just speculating here as to what actually happened. It’s hard for me to tell from the article.
Originally posted by Richard Parker
As a CPA and a tax preparer, I can attest that the accountant does not just decide what to deduct. The taxpayer has 100% responsibility of what is on the return. The Accountant has absolutely no liability in the preparation of a return unless it can be proven that he gave tax advice that was unlawful to the client or had a documented conversation with a client to take a position on his return that went against the law. If an accountant made a typo and put too much income or deductions on a return? Once again, the liability is with the taxpayer. By signing the return (manually or electronically), they affirm that the information on the return is correct. Ignorance is no excuse. A client could call me up tomorrow and say “I gave $50,000 to XYZ charity”. That is all I need to put it on the tax return. It is entirely up to the taxpayer to obtain and keep the proper substantiating documentation for the deduction.
What kind of procedure would this be? Isn’t it normally something the tax preparer would have a procedure for?
I have no doubt that this is true as a matter of legal liability. But ignorance about tax law (or negligence) is a lesser offense than malice in the court of public opinion.
Well, for a lot of us, the procedure is looking at the W2 and going, “hey, that doesn’t seem right.”
Now, for me personally, I track all my finances in Quicken and categorize them in great detail and then send them to my tax preparer. I also call him several times a year with questions about what is and isn’t deductible. After I get my W2s and 1099s and Schedule K-1s, I match them against Quicken and see if they line up, and if they don’t, I know something is wrong. Then, I send it all into my tax preparer, and then I review the tax forms after they come back.
Now, I could hire someone to do all of this for me. Which is what people who are really rich usually do. But if you’re going to do that, you still have to make sure that there’s someone responsible for each of these tasks. So, that’s the question for me. Who was responsible for these tasks, and what procedures were in place to catch errors like this?
Some tax preparers also handle all of these tasks for you, but these are things are not a part of tax preparation. That’s better classified as accounting or financial management. Your tax preparer only has access to the information you give him, and if you don’t tell him all your income, then he’s not going to be able to fill out the tax forms properly.
Hey! It was an honest question, I don’t know diddly squat about Tom Daschle, you (apparently) know considerably more. So I asked. I’m sure he’s to the left of the Bushiviks, but whoopity fucka doo. Frankly, whether or not he gets this appointment or no is *way *down my list of give-a-shit.
But, of course, we still have the problem of your doubts, suspicions about my partisan biases. Hmmm. How about this, then? I will try to be as honest as I can, and you can believe whatever you fucking well please.
Yes, I think that will do nicely.
I have no doubts or suspicions about your partisan biases. Your attempts at honesty will carry as much weight as the electons carrying your posts to this message board.
Most everybody here has partisan biases, including you. The insinuation that partisan bias automatically automatically denotes dishonesty is self-incriminating on your own part.
I think your “circle the wagons” comment was off the mark considering that no one here is doing that and the question which prompted your allegation was non-defensive of Daschle and merely curious (all Lucy did was ask if he was rich).
I think if you review the thread and even the board history regarding Tom Daschle. you’ll find that the major response he evokes among SDMB leftists is resounding indifference (though that can range to mild distaste on the low end). The guy does nothing for me, personally, and his appointment holds no urgency. I couldn’t care less if he doesn’t get the gig.
I have to say that I tend to feel much the same about this process when Republicans do it. Blocking appointments is a hollow victory when the next nominee will come from the exact same party, have the exact same views and wear the exact same tie. Unless a nominee can actually be shown to be significantly unethical or incompetent, I see no point in obstructing them over piddly shit. Getting to pick the Cabinet is one of the spoils of winning. I felt the same way about Bush.
Perhaps the wrong place to ask but did Geitner’s and Daschle’s tax problems come to light as a result of being nominated(IOW, SOP for going before the senate for confirmation) or as a result of Obama’s people looking into it?
Brings up a good point. Looks like pretty minor dirt, but its still dirt. He should have known, he could have picked up the phone and asked somebody to do a complete fiscal colonoscopy. If he wasn’t that smart, he has people who are that smart. He should never have let the nomination go forward. Gotta keep in mind, he’s from S. Dakota, what Texas A&M would be if it were a state.
On another point, I think I may know why righties are so intent on presuming a slavering devotion to Tom D. Its all image. Like why Fox hired Colmes to be on Hannity and His Bitch, he totally fits the image of the Liberal Weenie.
So naturally, they assume we’d ride to his defense in full cry. Either that, or they’re just really hungry for something to be shocked shocked about. Little of both, maybe.
Let’s remember that Daschle has been stung by tax issues before - he was caught a few years back trying to claim a tax break on his DC home only available to DC residents - which he couldn’t legally be as a representative of South Dakota and a registered voter there. This issue did hurt him in the 2004 election and may have contributed to his defeat.
Is twice enough to count as a pattern of behavior? When it comes to tons of tax money I think that’s pretty reasonable to state.
It’s not conceivable that he wouldn’t know that his consulting income was taxable. If he wants to get out of that one he is going to have to do some explaining and I can’t imagine what it might be. The car stuff seems more esoteric. I think the administration should find somebody else and let Tom go back to misreporting his fabulous income.
I agree. If he’s had legitimate tax issues before, he should be personally making sure it gets done right.
My impression from the article is that he has an accountant that both prepares his taxes and handles his finances.
To be honest, I find it utterly impossible to believe.
No one is saying he didn’t know it was taxable. There was some kind of clerical error on the part of his employer. It isn’t clear from the article, which is reporting about a confidential Senate report, what the nature of the error was. But we can imagine any number of things that don’t require the conclusion that he thought his consulting income was tax-free.
Cite? (I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I would think that HIS mother, of all people, should be able to afford her prescriptions.)