Tax Lawyer's Blog

Larry Kudlow in his regular column Money Politics raises the interesting question “why did President Obama choose Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to speak about tax compliance when he announced the White House’s plan to go after tax cheats?”

Here’s an excerpt from Mr. Geithner’s remarks:

Today we are taking another important step toward those goals by ending indefensible tax breaks and loopholes which allow some companies and some well-off citizens to evade the rules that the rest of America lives by.

 

Huh?

 

Let’s take a look back at Geithner’s “non-answer” answer to a simple question posed by Sen. Jim Bunning during Geithner’s confirmation hearing.

 

SEN. BUNNING: Would you have paid your 2001 and 2002 tax had you not been nominated to be the treasury secretary?

 

GEITHNER: Senator, as I said initially, I should have asked more questions when I concluded that audit at the time, and I didn’t. When I think back on that, I regret not having done that. But I should have done it at that point.

 

Hmm.

Isn’t this a little like having O.J. Simpson give a lecture on the evils of domestic violence?

And Kudlow makes an even more interesting observation,

[I]t’s worth remembering that Geithner was working at the IMF when he dodged his taxes. The IMF itself is a tax haven. The income is tax-free. All you’ve got to do is pay your payroll taxes, which is precisely what [Geithner] failed to do until he was nominated back in December. 

Author’s Observation:  We probably should just get used to this because Geithner is the Treasury Secretary and, as such, oversees the operations of the Internal Revenue Service. 

Like it or not, he’s our top tax man.

(Kudos: Instapundit)

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