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Treasury Secretary, Tax Cheat
The newest most ethical administration in history, if you're into double standards and hypocrisy that is.
posted by Spencerblog at
9:17 AM
Saturday, January 24, 2009
11 Comments:
This comment has been removed by the author.
The SE tax is extremely straightforward to understand, even if you’ve only graduated from Dartmouth and have an M.A. in International Economics from John Hopkins. As a matter of fact, just type “Self Employment Tax” into Google, and this handy & helpful Web page will appear at the very tippy-top of the listings, which is the kind of search engine result that tells you 11 million or so others have visited here before you. Click on that page, and this is what you’ll see straightaway:
What is the Self-employment Tax?
Self-employment tax (SE tax) is a social security and Medicare tax primarily for individuals who work for themselves. It is similar to the social security and Medicare taxes withheld from the pay of most wage earners.
You figure SE tax yourself using Schedule SE (Form 1040). Social security and Medicare taxes of most wage earners are figured by their employers. Also you can deduct half of your SE tax in figuring your adjusted gross income. Wage earners cannot deduct social security and Medicare taxes."
I think you’ll agree that this is unusually prosaic verbiage for the IRS. Nonetheless, that’s not to say someone couldn’t legitimately not know about the SE tax—once. But several times?
Call me a cynic. But I think Timothy saying he just forgot about the SE tax—from 2001 to last fall—stretches the parameters of credulity. Or more prosaically, he’s full of bull. You know it. I know it. He knows it.
But since when is being notoriously feculent in spirit and morality a detriment to one’s suitability for government service? Actually, it’s a credential. The Senate has vetted Timothy Geithner, and they have found his ethical predilections to be totally reasonable by their own standards.
No surprise there.
Read more at www.halfjoking.net
"Call me a cynic. But I think Timothy saying he just forgot about the SE tax—from 2001 to last fall—stretches the parameters of credulity. Or more prosaically, he’s full of bull. You know it. I know it. He knows it."
Steve Barone, how dare you.
Have you released your own tax returns so that we can be sure you can legitimately, and un-hypocritically make such observations?
We have a new proposed standard here at Spencerblog. We're going to call it the Diano Standard.
Unless you are willing to publicly release your own tax returns, we will not accept comments about public figures and their alleged shortcomings.
It's only fair that such a standard start with the man who first suggested it, Diano himself.
And so, without further ado, Mr. Diano, your tax returns for the years 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, please.
Until you provide them - or affirm you intend to provide them, or readily admit such a request is, itself, offensive - your comments will be rejected on this site.
I find it funny that the Obama campaign who said "It is our patriotic duty to pay our taxes" chose a man who did not fully pay his taxes. Are we to believe that Geithner is not a patriot? According to the standards set by Joe Biden he is clearly not.
lol @ gil. so we have to publish tax returns in order to post on this blog? wow, and I thought comment moderation was tough enough! I think diano was sobbing into his keybaord as he wrote that response.
I DO want to talk about hypocrisy - unfortunately, I could care less about an analyst on Fox News who's had bridges to burn with the clintons. I'm more focused with the present administration who applied for this job two years ago, pledging open government and now installing revolving doors for appointments and nominees to key positions who couldn't comply as citizens.
"so we have to publish tax returns in order to post on this blog?"
Diano, first. It was his idea. We'll see if he changes his mind.
The definition of a hypocrite? Someone who asks others to do what he won't do himself.
Update: David Diano has declined to provide copies of his own tax returns after asking me to publish mine.
That makes him a hypocrite.
He has also declined to admit that his suggestion was foolish and offensive.
So his commenting privileges remain suspended indefinitely.
And all suspected sockpuppetry will be rejected as well.
Oh, I understand it was Diano's statement, Gil. Its one of his more impressive ones. I'd like to put it up for early nomination as a candidate for "most ridiculous post" for the 2009 Spencerblog awards.
You can read diano's post just like any of his others, they follow a similar format:
1) Shift the subject to someone else with similar or bigger issues that has no connection to the issue at hand (e.g. Why do I care about Dick Morris?)
2) Massage the issue down by stating the menial nature of the issue (Only $34,000)
3) Bleeding HEart sidestory to try to detract from the issue at hand (Glorious Obama transition team forced Geithner to pay over the top! As if that makes up for years of neglect - ONLY when nominated will you catch up on your obligation)
4) Criticism of accuser and/or smug statement (IN tis case, Dave shifted a bit to one of the most entertaining challenges I've ever seen here)
You can sum up his posts in this fashion - maybe we can refer to his style as "The Audacity of Diano".
I don't care about the amount of back taxes, I'm not interested in the fact that he paid it up just recently and put a little "cherry on top" - it doesn't replace the fact that he was negligent for several years, and only through a major nomination did he consider paying up - I'm sure it will go through, but it's a crying shame - this one may be as bad as the Harriet Miers nomination.
Dead on, Steve.
And I'm with you on the back taxes. Of course, it is amusing the man proposed to run the U.S. Department of the Treasury can't seem to keep up with his tax liabilities and the Obama people don't seem to think this is a disqualifying flaw for holding this particular office.
Still, I think Geithner is more qualified to be Treasury Sec. than Harriet Miers was to be a Supreme Court justice.
Diano Update II:
It appears he has deleted his comment (see above) suggesting I release my tax returns under penalty of being thought a tax cheat and a hypocrite if I didn't.
Not good enough.
Spencerblog demands an affirmative admission that the original suggestion was both foolish and offensive.
Until then, no posts for you, Diano.
So, a comment deletion replaces the admission of being wrong? where's the open-ness, accountability, transparency? This isn't in the spirit of your Camelot-like administration, or are we all wrong? And don't give me the b.s. of "I will not give you the benefit of my words of wisdom on this blog" crap again. You're doing it because you were caught red handed and don't have the guts to own up to it.
(Note to viewers - expect a "Why steve mcdonald can go f himself" post over at the Delco Watch blog shortly)
See, I'd like to agree that Geithner highly qualified, but being a diligent tax payer has to be one of the first steps to ANY nomination bearing the proper qualifications. There are other qualified individuals on the left who could handle the position (Except Chris Dodd) - President Obama should have saved face and brought someone else in. It would have earned my respect.
Concerning Harriet Miers, it was a terrible pick, but I was pleased when she "withdrew" her nomination (Bush realized his mistake and asked her to do so) and instead nominated Sam Alito, well qualified for the job.
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