Change we can believe in


I remember when I forgot to pay $34,000 in taxes.

It was when I took a job, with a PhD, that didn't pay that as the annual salary.

WASHINGTON — Timothy F. Geithner, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for Treasury secretary, failed to pay more than $34,000 in federal taxes over several years early this decade, and also faces questions about the employment papers of a former household employee, suddenly complicating what had seemed to be an easy confirmation process in the Senate.

And this motherfucker is going to fix up the mess made by the other motherfuckers he fucks mothers with?

Combine this with Obama trotting religious zealots Christian fanatics around his Big Day and it is starting to look like Washington.

But really Geithner is not to blame. See, the Obama people point out that people who work in international organizations just plumb fergit to pay taxes. Thankfully the IRS waives the fees.

"Mr. Geithner fully paid his state and federal income taxes. In failing to pay his payroll taxes, he in effect kept the money the I.M.F. had contributed toward his liability. However, Mr. Geithner’s accountant told him he was exempt from self-employment taxes, according to Obama transition officials.

As Obama officials pointed out, and I.R.S. documents attest, the failure to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes is common among Americans who work for international organizations, including foreign embassies. A 2007 I.R.S. notice reported that up to half of such employees incorrectly file their tax returns.

The I.R.S. waived penalties for Mr. Geithner in 2006, according to an account provided by the transition office and the Senate committee. A three-year statute of limitations had precluded the agency from auditing the 2001 and 2002 tax returns, a committee aide said."

Like the times the IRS waives your fees when you are late paying taxes. Or when you just just plumb fergit to pay taxes. Everybody does it!

But it gets better after the jump. This dude, like all rich motherfuckers, just doesn't want to pay taxes at all. That is for little people.

"Mr. Geithner volunteered to amend the earlier returns and pay the taxes and interest, a total of $25,970, after Mr. Obama indicated that he wanted to nominate him for the Treasury job, according to the account. Mr. Obama announced the nomination in Chicago on Nov. 24, three days after the issue had come to Mr. Geithner’s attention.

That chronology raises the question, however, of why Mr. Geithner did not voluntarily correct the earlier nonpayment of self-employment taxes after the 2006 I.R.S. audit identified the problem for 2003 and 2004.

Late Tuesday, Republican and Democratic sources were still predicting that Mr. Geithner would be confirmed. Before the tax disclosures, the toughest questions he was expected to face were over his role in the government’s bailout program for financial institutions.

The Senate Finance Committee has known about the tax matters since Dec. 5, and staff members have reviewed Mr. Geithner’s tax records and interviewed three of his accountants and an I.M.F. representative.

Mr. Geithner met with committee staff members on Dec. 19 to answer questions about the taxes on his I.M.F. income and about other relatively minor issues the staff had found. Those issues, for which Mr. Geithner recently paid $4,334 in back taxes and $1,232 in interest, include his mistaken claim of the dependent care credit on his income taxes for the costs of sleep-away camps in three years. The Geithners have two teenage children."

I love that last bit. I mean, who wouldn't think sleep away camp for teenagers was day care?

"Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, called the matter “a lot to do about nothing.” '

Will the same be said of you in April 15?