Sandhusker
Well-known member
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574300013592601036.html
As the tenant of four rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem,... as a hardship case for rent control. (He also used one of the apartments as an office in violation of rent-control rules, but that’s another story.)
it has confirmed that Mr. Rangel owned a home in Washington from 1971-2000 and during that time claimed a “homestead” exemption that allowed him to save on his District of Columbia property taxes. However, the homestead exemption only applies to a principal residence, and the Washington home could not have qualified as such since Mr. Rangel’s rent-stabilized apartments in New York have the same requirement.
Why tax problems have plagued Team Obama
By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
March 17, 2009
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner speaks at the Treasury Department in Washington, detailing the Obama Administrations plans for the economic recovery. (AP)
It’s been a recurring question about the young Obama administration: Why have so many of its nominees come down with tax problems?
Timothy Geithner, Tom Daschle, Ron Kirk, Nancy Killefer, and a number of others who didn’t make it to the nomination stage — all have been felled, or tainted, by unpaid tax bills ranging from a few hundred dollars to more than $140,000. After the first few cases, Republican Rep. Eric Cantor quipped that “it’s easy for [Democrats] to sit here and advocate higher taxes because — you know what? — they don’t pay them.”
For their part, some Democrats have suggested that the Senate Finance Committee, which investigates nominees before confirmation, has gotten so nit-picky in examining tax returns that good candidates have gone down in flames. “The Finance Committee has gone a bit overboard, and I find it a little striking that a Democratic committee is doing this to a Democratic administration,” one anonymous insider told the Politico recently. “This has been a lot more in-depth and detailed, to the point of being silly.”
Now, we find out that neither Cantor nor the unnamed Democrat was correct. The problem is not with Democrats in general, nor with the Finance Committee in particular. The problem is the Obama White House, which, fully aware of its nominees’ tax issues, decided that those problems were trivial, or that the public wouldn’t care about them, and pushed forward with nominations that in the past would have been quietly shelved.
In little-noticed remarks last week, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, gave us a look inside the confirmation process. Irritated by news reports suggesting the committee had been too hard on Obama’s nominees, Grassley pointed the finger back at the White House.
“I want to stress that the Finance Committee is not doing anything different now from what it has always done under the leadership of either Senator Baucus or me,” Grassley said, referring to Democratic chairman Max Baucus of Montana. “We are vetting nominees for the current administration the same way we vetted nominees for the previous administration.”
“The tax issues of the nominees considered by the committee this year came to be public only because the nominees chose to proceed.”
Grassley said the committee has always requested three years of tax returns from nominees, and always employed experts to review them. And in the past, he added, “many nominees” faced questions based on their tax returns. The reason tax problems seem more prevalent now, Grassley explained, is that in previous administrations those nominees chose to quietly withdraw. Now, they try to stick it out, leading to sometimes embarrassing controversy. “Chairman Baucus and I agree that if a nominee chooses to proceed after tax issues are identified, then the public should be informed of those issues,” Grassley said.
I asked a Senate source close to the nominating process why the troubled nominations kept coming, in spite of the tax problems. “I think it was the administration underestimating what the grassroots folks who elected President Obama were going to object to,” the source told me. With the out-of-touch White House firmly behind the nominees, Senate Democrats got the message that they, too, needed to line up in support. So they did — until they started hearing from outside the Washington bubble. “If you look at Daschle’s experience, he came out of a meeting with members of the committee, and the Democratic members said they supported him,” the insider pointed out. “But on the next day he withdrew.”
So when it comes to tax woes, the White House has no one to blame but itself. Looking at the reports the Finance Committee staff produced on Geithner, Daschle and others, it’s impressive how bipartisan the work has been. Baucus and Grassley appear to be working together quite closely on nominations, and their assessments of nominees’ tax problems have been dry, matter-of-fact, and fair. Some members of Team Obama may believe the senators have gone too far, but it’s a very hard case to make.
So why the complaints? “I think it’s just someone in the administration being completely frustrated by what’s going on with their nominees and then attempting to discredit the process or discourage Baucus and Grassley from doing what they’ve always done before,” my Senate insider told me. “It hasn’t worked.”
Liveoak said:So, Democrat politicians are for non-payment of taxes and Republican politicians are angelic in their payments. I guess that explains McCains non-payment of home taxes for several years :lol2: . All "innocent" mistakes, I'm sure. :shock:
Liveoak said:So, Democrat politicians are for non-payment of taxes and Republican politicians are angelic in their payments. I guess that explains McCains non-payment of home taxes for several years :lol2: . All "innocent" mistakes, I'm sure. :shock:
Liveoak said:Of course he paid after a few years and after it was noticed.Like I said, Dem tax delinquincy or Repub; it catches up to them eventually. And it's no surprise that we see more of it among Dems.