36 Obama Aides Owe $833,000 In Back Taxes

[chucky2]

If it's legal to get on an installment plan and thereby use the money you hold back to make a bigger profit, why shouldn't a person do this? How is this any different from taking advantage of any other tax loophole? If there's something wrong with doing this intentionally (and I don't know that we have any evidence that those referred to in the OP are using this loophole), then the law should be changed to make it illegal.

Also, since the IRS charges an interest rate much higher than any of us can get in a secure investment, the "taxpayers" you refer to are actually receiving more, not less, in the long run.

Sounds like win-win to me.

You see wolf?? This is exactly the reason I'm so skeptical of 'owed back taxes' being an exceptional situation instead of some money making scheme.

 

[Jhhnn]

I mean that what they're doing is a) not illegal, b) not costing the taxpayers because you have to pay interest (plus a small penalty) on installment payments, and c) not immoral for any reason I can see. If you owe a debt and agree with the creditor to make structured payments with interest, there isn't anything wrong with that. You can say they should have budgeted ahead of time, but so what? It isn't costing you or me anything. Loads of people in both government and the private sector are doing this at any given time.

This.

Otherwise, it's just a rant opportunity for the usual suspects.

The notion that regular people would hold back on paying taxes to pursue an arbitrage investment strategy is ridiculous. IRS penalties & interest are high enough that only delusionalists would even consider it.

Nor does it matter who one's employer might be, govt or private. It's strictly something between the taxpayer & the IRS.

But do rave on, guys... self righteous indignation and faux outrage are the defining characteristics of modern "Conservatives", illustrated once again in this thread among many.

Get over yourselves.

 

[senseamp]

Blame it on the O O O O O Obama.

 

[pcgeek11]

Absolutely. But most people who "owe back taxes" couldn't pay them all on April 15 and are on a structured payment plan with the IRS. My wife and I had to do that one year. If you're on a payment plan, and have made all your monthly payments on time, you still "owe back taxes." Owing back taxes is used in this context to imply impropriety, but impropriety isn't the usual case.

- wolf

This will not happen if you are doing it correctly.

 

[monovillage]

This.

Otherwise, it's just a rant opportunity for the usual suspects.

The notion that regular people would hold back on paying taxes to pursue an arbitrage investment strategy is ridiculous. IRS penalties & interest are high enough that only delusionalists would even consider it.

Nor does it matter who one's employer might be, govt or private. It's strictly something between the taxpayer & the IRS.

But do rave on, guys... self righteous indignation and faux outrage are the defining characteristics of modern "Conservatives", illustrated once again in this thread among many.

Get over yourselves.

Sorry, I was over in one of the many Romney financial threads, I heard there was self righteous indignation and faux outrage over here also. What have i missed?

 

[EagleKeeper]

This will not happen if you are doing it correctly.

Those that are in this situation chose to not pay taxes on the income outside of wages when it was earned. Sold investments and did not have withholding done, did not pay taxes on self employment as required, did not put aside a portion of funds from other sources.

 

[Jhhnn]

Sorry, I was over in one of the many Romney financial threads, I heard there was self righteous indignation and faux outrage over here also. What have i missed?

There was, and I wasn't part of it, at least not wrt his amended disclosure. His tax rate is another matter entirely. He could pay 30% and never know the difference except on paper. It wouldn't affect his lifestyle in the slightest. Some of Obama's aides are likely assessed a higher rate than his on incomes orders of magnitude less.

What you offer is, of course, merely diversion anyway.

 

[jackstar7]

Every "American Citizen" should suspend paying their federal income taxes. Just stop. This does not mean stop supporting your State and local governments, but stop your support of the Federal Government. They do not deserve our support, they do not care about us and all they want is more and more money. You might think "oh but they want to spend this on that" that's bullshit, stop buying into this non-sense that you need some extra special gigantic entity to take care of everything in your life and fucking do it for yourselves.

You first.

 

[Jhhnn]

Those that are in this situation chose to not pay taxes on the income outside of wages when it was earned. Sold investments and did not have withholding done, did not pay taxes on self employment as required, did not put aside a portion of funds from other sources.

There are other possibilities, as well. They may have received real estate as a gift, for example, prefer to keep it rather than liquidate to pay the taxes on that gift. The IRS will oblige with a payment plan. They may have invested in a tax shelter later disallowed by the IRS. Divorce can put people in awkward tax situations.

There are all kinds of reasons that people owe back taxes. The important part is that they have reached an agreement with the IRS. It's part & parcel of the tax code, and has been for a very long time.

 

[jman19]

Having fun at the partisan Democrats expense never gets old.

You're not any better, you're one of the most partisan members who post here.

 

[EagleKeeper]

There are other possibilities, as well. They may have received real estate as a gift, for example, prefer to keep it rather than liquidate to pay the taxes on that gift. The IRS will oblige with a payment plan. They may have invested in a tax shelter later disallowed by the IRS. Divorce can put people in awkward tax situations.

There are all kinds of reasons that people owe back taxes. The important part is that they have reached an agreement with the IRS. It's part & parcel of the tax code, and has been for a very long time.

I overlooked such.

If they are on a payment plan, there is no issue. If they were like tbe Treasury Secretary,tbat is different.

 

[monovillage]

You're not any better, you're one of the most partisan members who post here.

I am and i'm open with it. Some of the other partisan posters pretend to be non-partisan or totally objective. I may be a partisan jerk, but at least i'm honest about it

 

[cybrsage]

I guess it's simple to me: You make money, you owe taxes. You make lots of money, you owe lots of taxes. I don't understand how people, knowing they are going to owe come April 15th, cannot budget ahead of time to cover what they owe.

PA local tax law is pretty screwed up, but it is slowly being changed for the better. Until just this tax year, your local taxes were taken out of your paycheck based on where you worked. The local taxes you owe are taken out based on where you live. See the problem yet?

The area where I work has a 1% tax rate for local, but where I live has a 2% local tax. Only 1% was taken out of my pay, and come tax time I suddenly owed an additional 1% of my pay. 1% of each paycheck is so small I did not notice the difference...and never ran into the issue before so never even thought to look for it. BOOM! I owed many hundreds of dollars suddenly.

Luckily for me, I get many thousands back from the fed each year (M0, withhold at higher single rate), so I had the money to pay...but I can easily see why others might not.

The laws have just recently been changed, so this year they have to take out the higher amount of the two...location of work vs location of home.

 

[Engineer]

Cherry picked data when the real problem is that 279,000 federal employees owe $3.4 billion in back taxes.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/thousands-federal-workers-owe-back-taxes-231332510.html

The data showed that 467 employees of the House of Representatives, or about 4.2 percent of the workforce, owed more than $8.5 million. In the Senate, 217 employees, or about 3 percent of the workforce, owed $2.13 million.

Obama's staff was not immune, either, with 36 people in Obama's executive office of nearly 1,800 workers — about 2 percent — owing the government $833,970 in back taxes.

Looks like the HOR has the most delinquent % of federal employed taxpayers.

Also note (not in link I provided) that a recent article stated that tax cheating cost the US over 400 BILLION in 2006....enough to cover the entire federal deficit and then some in that year. Something to think about.

 

[palehorse]

Obama has a larger staff than Bush's staff

Lawl!

OK, I know, I still need to grow up...

 

[shortylickens]

11 million illegals owe 11 billion in back taxes. Maybe we should be more worried about him letting that debt slide. And keeping Americans unemployed so they cant pay taxes.

Seriously, 800 grand spread over 36 people is a pittance. If you got ALL that money you'd maybe have one small part for an F-22 engine.

 

[Jhhnn]

I overlooked such.

If they are on a payment plan, there is no issue. If they were like tbe Treasury Secretary,tbat is different.

Thgat's not really different at all. People make mistakes on their taxes all the time. If it's in the taxpayer's favor, the IRS sends 'em a check. If the taxpayer owes, the IRS notifies them, and they work it out from there. It's not like Geithner refused to pay when the error in his return was discovered.

And there are some notorious cases where the people paid to take care of matters such as taxes fail to do their job, as happened to Willie Nelson-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Nelson

Penalties & interest from that can be brutal.

 

[xBiffx]

Thgat's not really different at all. People make mistakes on their taxes all the time. If it's in the taxpayer's favor, the IRS sends 'em a check. If the taxpayer owes, the IRS notifies them, and they work it out from there. It's not like Geithner refused to pay when the error in his return was discovered.

And there are some notorious cases where the people paid to take care of matters such as taxes fail to do their job, as happened to Willie Nelson-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Nelson

Penalties & interest from that can be brutal.

I'll just use your words since you put it so perfectly.

What you offer is, of course, merely diversion anyway.

Claiming this is all due to honest mistakes is hilarious. Willie Nelson, really? You have an excuse for everything? More diversion please, its entertaining.

 

[shira]

You see wolf?? This is exactly the reason I'm so skeptical of 'owed back taxes' being an exceptional situation instead of some money making scheme.

You seemed to have missed the focus of my post. The fact that a loophole is available doesn't mean it's commonly used - it may well be an "exceptional" situation. I was questioning the characterization of those who DO use this loophole as somehow being disreputable, as "not paying their fair share."

Many loopholes are tax-delay strategies. For example, depreciating commercial real estate merely delays the payment of taxes until the property is sold - a delay that may last decades. I don't hear many people railing against depreciating property. Yet anyone who uses IRS installment as a tax-delay strategy is being characterized here as "not paying their fair share," when in fact they will end up paying their taxes owed PLUS a well-above-market interest rate, and those payments begin almost immediately after the due date for the taxes, not decades later.

No, I think what we have in this thread is politics (disguised as outrage) as usual.

 

[blankslate]

The aides in question should just pay the back taxes asap and offer to quit for giving the president's political adversaries ammunition with which to distract from the issues that need to be solved for this to country to move forward.

 

[Ninjahedge]

*sigh*.

Lo and behold Obama's aids are similar to every other politician currently in office.

If you were to go around and look at ANY politicians staff for the past 20 years, you will see evidence of this.

Is it right? No, but is it indicative somehow of Obama's fault or failure? No.

The only thing in this article that stinks to high heaven is its leaning to try to assign blame to the President for the actions of individuals on staff over an issue he CANNOT CONTROL.

Last time I checked, I did not have to hand over my tax return to my employer, or submit it on an interview. Siting this as if it was directly connected to Obama is rather obtuse.

 

[umbrella39]

Saying "newspaper" is generally sufficient, with minor exceptions.

Reality has a liberal slant to whackjobs...

 

[sunzt]

Anyone in high level congress or executive branch needs to settle their taxes before their first day.

Obama should tell his admin to settle owed taxes, however, it's not his responsibility to make sure all his admin has 0 back taxes.

 

[Druidx]

The Obama criminal cabel. LOL

 

[Ninjahedge]

Also... Looking at the numbers...

$833K on 36 people is about $26K/per person (on average) or probably close to 1 years taxes per person earning $100K/yr.

36/1800 = 1.4%, which, looking at the other stats is LESS than the HoR or Senate numbers...

So, what we are saying is that, in order for Obama to tow the line, he has to have another 20 people cheat/default on their taxes?