What’s amazing to me is how many people just fell off the truck yesterday. Y’all act like problems with taxes and the IRS are exceedingly rare and befall only crooks and liars. Well, the truth is that not everybody files by phone or with a 1040EZ. This shit happens. All. The. Time.
That’s why we pay a CPA to prepare our taxes. CPA’s, IIRC, are bound by a code of ethics. So if Daschle didn’t provide all the relevant information to the CPA…
Well yea. Of course, one of the problems in this example may have been that the ‘income’ was in the form of goods and services. This is not really in defense of him, mind you, since congressional critters are often asked specifically to ‘declare’ gifts. A smart person will ask specific questions. Ive often asked my accountants “is this ok to do?” keeps me out of trouble. Daschel is an idiot.
:smack:
No, I don’t think a one of 'em does his own taxes. Shit. I’m a relative pauper and I don’t do my own taxes. They just don’t provide the information to their tax preparer. Oopsie…forgot to hand you the paperwork on those consulting jobs.
It’s not a dem thing or a pubbie thing. It’s a “let’s see how much I can get away with” thing. Fuckers.
Yeah, and when he tortured that little kid, that was totally fucked up too.
Sorry…not following you.
Let’s not assume facts not in evidence in order to condemn people. From what we know, he probably gave the info on his consulting salary to his accountant, but the equity firm made an error in the paperwork which Daschle failed to catch. So let’s condemn him for failing to catch the error, not failing to report the income, eh?
Fair enough, but it sounds like they take much less care in their reporting than most other citizens do. You’d think that knowing they’re under the microscope would result in far fewer mistakes. And they’re big mistakes! It’s just a little too convenient. But I agree, I was a bit harsh in assuming the worst.
“Failing to catch the error?” Let’s condemn a really smart guy who was the Senate majority leader for failing to catch the error? Should we really go that far??
It’s his income tax return, for three fucking years. It’s his responsibility, not the accountants. These guys want to be portrayed as the smartest fuckers in the room, until the cheat on their taxes, then they just plain got confused.
How about this. The first time a politician turns in an amended return because he/she over paid $150,000 in taxes, then I’ll join you in Disneyland.
What’s your point? I’m saying it’s his responsibility. But there’s a difference between failing to catch an error and intentionally sheltering his income. You would condemn him because he’s a smart politician and ignore the direct facts. I hope you’re never on my jury.
I think a big part of the problem is the “perk” culture. Senators don’t hop into a used, rusty Honda Civic to toodle about in D.C., they got limos or cabs. Put another way, they get “rich guy” perks. Since the majority of them are rich, they may not pay much attention to who actually gets the bill, if its them, they’re not likely to care anyway.
From semi-interested reading, it appears that the crux of the biscuit is favors provided by a friend and business-partner who is much wealthier than Tom himself. A Senator has to be careful about shit like that, friendship is complicated in the halls of power.
It appears that Tom was more sloppy than greedy, so I’m inclined to shrug. And if he gets his ass handed to him and shipped back to South Dakota, I’ll shrug twice.
You should hope that I’m never on your jury - especially if you’re a millionaire ex-Senator and Congressman, who made over $5 million over the last two years, up for a cabinet job, and you can’t manage to pay your taxes. (Hope you get the $5 million though!!)
It seems to me there are fundamental civic duties. Obey the law, pay your taxes are two of them. And if you manage to goon one of those up, to the tune of almost $150k, I think you should be embarrassed and not fit for further government duty. I’d love Daschle to say that he let himself and the President down, and that he’s pulling his name. Leadership by example I think they call it.
And again, I don’t blame Obama - much. But the guy got elected as an outsider. Changechangechangechange. “The president believes nobody’s perfect but that nobody’s hiding anything.” Well that’s nice. Doesn’t hurt that he was one of the first on Obama’s bandwagon. Knew I’d be disappointed. Just hoped it wouldn’t be on day ten. Sounds like change I can believe in.
At this point I don’t give a rats ass how it happened. He signed the return for three years. It’s got his name on it. It’s no wonder Americans don’t believe in Washington, and think you’re a yokel if you actually don’t try and cheat on your taxes.
Tax money pays for the government; I’d go so far to say that your constitutional rights exist only as far as there exits a government to be able to enforce them.
The IRS is the only government agency that actually makes money. Given the ridiculous cuts to their abilities to do their jobs effectively, the IRS are now lucky if they can catch their own tails.
I propose not new taxes, but a release of the collective leash to collect on all old and due taxes, from sea to shining sea. Not ‘special rules’ just for congress critters but ones that would effect everyone, from Eli Pariser to Rush Limbaugh. You owe the money, you pay the money and We The People impound all your assets until/unless you do in a quick, thorough, efficient and resolute manner. No whiney John Stossel TV pieces, you pay or its taken; end of story.
This is embarrassing to the Dems and infuriating for all of us who DO pay our taxes. I still can’t quite swallow Beichner or whatever the sec of the treasury’s name is and now this. I do believe that Obama thought he could make a change in DC–but look what he has to work with. Neither political party can take the high road here, but the egg on the face is the Dem’s right now.
Maybe Obama should ask for a show of hands of who HAS paid their taxes/not had public restroom sex/sex with someone underage/extramarital sex/ not paid domestic help under the table/hired illegal aliens, and THEN pick his appointments. I bet the pool would be quite small–which is the most embarrassing part about all of this.
And frankly, this is exactly the kind of thing that made some of us roll our eyes at Changechangechange. If you limit your appointments to people who have not already profited from their time in government, you probably wouldn’t have enough qualified people to run a single cabinet agency.
That much was obvious from your first post.
You have to kill the tax havens and loop holes too. There are buildings in the Caimans that are supposedly headquarters for thousands of corporations .They are just mailboxes. Everybody should pay their taxes. When a company like Halliburton or Blackwater avoid American taxes ,they should not get American tax money.
Well Dick, thanks for advancing the discussion with that enlightening comment.
Yes, I can see that it’s very important to you for each post to advance the discussion.