More Tax Problems for Nominees

[Xiphos]

Evidently the Democrats don't mind taxes because they just don't pay anyway...

Official: Performance czar withdraws candidacy
Feb 3 11:41 AM US/Eastern
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN and LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Nancy Killefer, who failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help, has withdrawn her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government, the White House said Tuesday.

Killefer was the second major Obama administration nominee to withdraw and the third to have tax problems complicate their nomination after President Barack Obama announced their selection.

"Nancy Killefer has decided to withdraw her nomination, and we accepted her withdrawal," Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said Tuesday. The 55-year-old executive with consulting giant McKinsey & Co., was expected to explain her reasons for pulling out later in the day.

When her selection was announced by Obama on Jan. 7, The Associated Press disclosed that in 2005 the District of Columbia government had filed a $946.69 tax lien on her home for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help.

Since then, administration officials refused to answer questions about the tax error, which she resolved five months after the lien was filed. Obama's first choice for commerce secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, took his name out of consideration when his confirmation appeared headed toward complications because of a grand jury investigation over how state contracts were issued to political donors.

More recently, Timothy Geithner was confirmed as Treasury secretary despite belatedly paying $34,000 in income taxes, and Tom Daschle is still waiting to see if his late payment of more than $128,000 in income taxes will harm his nomination to be health and human services secretary.

On paper, Killefer brought impressive credentials to the two jobs Obama selected her for: deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, which requires Senate confirmation, and a new White House post, chief performance officer for the entire federal government, which does not require confirmation.

Killefer oversees McKinsey's management consulting for government clients. During 1997-2000 in the Clinton administration, Killefer was assistant Treasury secretary for management. As such she was the chief financial officer and chief operating officer for the Treasury and its 160,000 employees and led a modernization of its largest component, the Internal Revenue Service.

But for nearly a month, the administration had refused to answer how its choice to make government workers more efficient and more responsive had bungled her household payroll taxes.

The AP reported that on March 7, 2005, the D.C. Department of Employment Services slapped a tax lien on her home in the tony Wesley Heights neighborhood. The local government alleged that just three years after she left the high-powered Treasury post she began to fail to pay unemployment compensation tax for a household employee. And she failed to make the required quarterly payments for a year and half, whereupon a lien for $946.69 was placed on her home.

That sum included $298 in unpaid taxes, $48.69 in interest and $600 in penalties. The lien was filed March 7, 2005, but Killefer didn't get the lien extinguished for almost five months, not until July 29.

During that period, Killefer and her husband, an economics professor, had a teenage son and daughter, but she had two nannies and a personal assistant to run her life when she was on the road, she told Harvard business students back then.

[Five-0]

Sacrificial lamb, mark my words.

[Retdetsgt]

Sacrificial lamb, mark my words.

No doubt. A headline on The Drudge Report is saying Daschle has withdrawn. No story attached yet.

[Five-0]

I thought that Killefer's withdrawl was going to be cover for Daschle. I still think that, but I suppose it was too little to late.

[Bob Loblaw]

What the hell is up with these people not paying their taxes? It's not that hard...you're rich, so pay someone to do them right!!!!! Especially if you're in public office and it could come to light at any point!!!!!

[Retdetsgt]

What the hell is up with these people not paying their taxes? It's not that hard...you're rich, so pay someone to do them right!!!!! Especially if you're in public office and it could come to light at any point!!!!!

I find it interesting that the very people who want to raise our taxes don't pay theirs....

[Morris]

What I find interesting is that the Messiah stated he didn't want lobbyists and yet, who is he hiring? Tax cheats who got perks as part of their job as a lobbyist.

It will get interesting. What strikes me as amusing is that in this day and age with blogs, websites and so much data out there that anyone can think it will be like the old days and they will fly under the radar.

[Terminator]

What the hell is up with these people not paying their taxes? It's not that hard...you're rich, so pay someone to do them right!!!!! Especially if you're in public office and it could come to light at any point!!!!!

What the hell is wrong with our President and his people where they can't figure that shit out before they bring them aboard.

[Five-0]

Obama: Enough Of This Crap - The Market Ticker

Obama: Enough Of This Crap

This is FOUR people who you've appointed that can't pay their damn taxes, including your Treasury Secretary?
The latest is that Daschle has withdrawn, of course.
CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN?
I'll tell you what would be change. Since it appears that a huge percentage of the current and former Congressional delegation has cheated on its taxes - after all, what are the odds you only picked the tax cheats, if you want me to believe in your idea of CHANGE you will immediately order all member of Congress in both Houses to undergo full IRS audits all the way back to the Statute of Limitations (three years), along with all of their staff.
You and I know know it won't happen, but I'll tell you what - I keep hearing people say they're going to file absolute crap this year. Utter garbage. "The Dog ate my Schedule C."
If The American People do this, Mr. President, government funding will collapse. The IRS can't possibly audit everyone and we all know it.
Your administration is dangerously close to creating a full-on tax revolt among Americans. You would not believe how often I have heard this among people both online and off in the last couple of weeks. The anger, especially when the people who are cheating are folks like Daschle and Geithner, is VISCERAL - these are the people who both wrote the tax code and were involved in the bailouts and handouts which you expect we the people - ordinary Americans - to pay for.
Here is what Daschle said previously:

"Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter. " Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507.

But you, Mr. President, expect Americans to file truthful tax returns and pay their taxes as due?
I file and pay every year exactly what I owe. No cheating, no games, no BS. I spend upwards of a full week preparing and checking my tax return to make sure that I pay every dollar that is due (but not one more!) But now we discover that every day another one of your appointees in your "new day" for Washington DC has cheated on their taxes and in the case of Daschle and Geithner they knew they owed the money and didn't pay until you tapped them?
Against this backdrop you expect ordinary Americans to file and pay for bankster bailouts to cover the fraudulent actions of the banking and securitization industry?
You might want to rethink this one, and I can come up with only two ways to do it:

• Audit EVERY Congressperson and EVERY staffer in your administration, including yourself. Everyone, all the way back to the statute of limitations, with the results of those audits made public.
• Ditch the IRS and the current tax system entirely (mooting the question) and move the nation to The Fair Tax, thereby firing all the tax lobbyists and game-players in DC and elsewhere.

Frankly I prefer #2 but #1 is acceptable.
"Do nothing", on the other hand, may well NOT be accepted by The American people.
If what I hear in my day-to-day the patience of "The People" is about done.

[Bob Loblaw]

What the hell is wrong with our President and his people where they can't figure that shit out before they bring them aboard.

yeah....you would think the time since the election and the inauguration would give his team plenty of time to make sure that his picks pay their taxes and haven't been caught in bed with a dead girl/live boy.

[TXCharlie]

Tom Daschle has now dropped out... Or he was forcably dropped, lol.

[sgtbear111]

Ahhh.... the "Architects of Change" fall upon their cheese-knives. With a bunch of re-cycled Clintonistas they have to keep lowering the bar for ethics. Updated examples of the same old crap. The rubber-stamp "confirmaton hearings" remind me of the 1934 Reichstag.

[MacLean]

yeah....you would think the time since the election and the inauguration would give his team plenty of time to make sure that his picks pay their taxes and haven't been caught in bed with a dead girl/live boy.

Or maybe when we told you the man had no experience as an executive, we had a point.

[Terminator]

Or maybe when we told you the man had no experience as an executive, we had a point.

LOL. Burn.