For the “You Can’t Make This Stuff Up” File: Obama Tax-Challenged Democrats Worried About Other People & Companies Not Paying Their Taxes

This is rich. Obama’s Tax Cheat-in-Chief, Internal Revenue Service Head Tim Geithner, has announced that he and the Obama administration will be cracking down on …. people and companies that avoid US taxes. The Associated Press reports (link):

President Obama's Treasury secretary [Timothy Geithner] says the administration will unveil a series of rules and measures in the coming months to limit the ability of international companies to avoid U.S. taxes. Geithner told the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday (March 3) that Obama will propose legislation to limit U.S. companies' ability to shelter foreign earnings from taxation in the U.S. He also said the administration will try to limit wealthy Americans' ability to use tax havens to avoid taxation. He did not immediately provide details.

It should be pointed out that what Geithner is taking about is tax avoidance that is currently legal, unlike what he, Daschle, Rangel, and so many other high-profile Democrats have been caught at but will never be prosecuted for – illegal tax evasion. Even Rahm Emanuel is facing questions about his past taxes on property in Chicago (link).

Presumably Obama and his team of tax cheats won’t be cracking down on their own tax cheating, for to do so might clean out half of the Democrats in the executive branch.

Meanwhile, here’s the latest prominent Obama Democrat to be exposed as a tax cheat. The Associated Press reports (link):

Ron Kirk, [Obama’s] choice to be U.S. Trade Representative, owes an estimated $10,000 in back taxes from earlier in the decade and has agreed to pay them, the Senate Finance Committee said Monday [March 3]…. Kirk also agreed to make changes in his accounting of charitable deductions…. The former Dallas mayor is the fourth nominee by President Barack Obama to run into tax problems.

Jennifer Rubin writes at the Commentary Magazine’s Contentions group weblog (link):

Apparently there is a shortage of qualified Democrats who have paid their taxes. Query whether a better solution to the Obama budgetary revenue shortfall would be an en masse nomination of Obama’s wealthy donors to top spots. That alone would stand to bring in millions to the federal coffers.

This is the change Obama promised from the previous administration – it’s OK with him that his people don’t pay their taxes.


John M Greco