Tax Lawyer's Blog

I recently blogged about a bill that was introduced by Representative John Carter (R-TX) called the Rangel Rule Act of 2009. 

The bill, of course, has gone nowhere and Mr. Rangel remains the Chairman of the top tax writing committee in Congress.

Here is an excerpt of the explanation of the bill Carter gave on the House floor:

[I] think it is totally, totally inappropriate for the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, who has admitted that he failed for years to pay taxes on income that he received in the Dominican Republic, that he should not be assessed penalties and interest. For 10 years I practiced law in Texas, and I represented a lot of people who had trouble with the IRS. And I always saw when we finished it up and resolved their issues, penalties and interest. In many instances, the penalties and interest were more than the taxes. And Mr. Rangel, and I don’t have exact numbers, but it was for a period of 10 or 15 years that he didn’t pay on this income. Why shouldn’t he pay penalties and interest?

So I wrote him a letter. I said very respectfully, Mr. Chairman, I am sure that you do not want to be treated any differently than any other American. I would request that you speak to the IRS and ask them to assess the appropriate penalties and interest, and that you pay them. I received no reply to that.

So I introduced a bill that I call the Rangel rule. The Rangel rule says very simply if you owe penalties and interest on income that you fail to pay, when you pay that tax, write on your tax form “exercising the Rangel rule” and you as an American citizen will be treated the same as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

I thought that was fair. I thought that was just. It is still in the hopper. I am perfectly willing, if the leadership of this House will bring it up, to put it to a vote of my colleagues, and we might be surprised; the Rangel rule might actually become law. But we should at least have that kind of fair treatment for Americans, the same kind of fair treatment we expect to have. We don’t expect people in this Congress to get different treatment.

Related Posts:

The Color of Money: Pelosi’s Rangel Problem 

Jay Leno’s Charlie Rangel Joke 

Top Tax Writer Charlie Rangel Not so Good With Numbers 

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