There's no dispute today. There was during his tenure at the IMF.
By "more liable than a normal person", I chose a confusing set of words to make the point that Geithner's tax situation was more confusing than my mom's: he was effectively self-employed, even though he held a long-term salaried full-time job.
As a businessperson paid in LLC distributions instead of W2 wages, I'm sympathetic to the complexity of self-employment tax. When you fail to pay taxes on time, you aren't a criminal. You simply incur interest and (in some cases) penalties. Penalties are frequently waived.
Like many other entrepreneurs I know, I'm also very sympathetic to the idea of not paying taxes until you have to.
Geithner didn't attempt to hide his tax liability. It was in plain sight. When it became more troublesome to avoid paying taxes than to square up, he simply paid them. I don't understand the political drama behind this. Geithner simply wasn't a tax cheat.
> There's no dispute today. There was during his tenure at the IMF.
No, there wasn't any dispute. Someone has to pay SS taxes on earned income. US employers can be forced to pay half and deduct the other half. The IMF thinks that it is exempt from following US law wrt withholding, but that doesn't eliminate the requirement.
More to the point, the IMF GAVE Geitner money specifically to pay these taxes AND had him sign a form saying that the taxes were his responsibility. IMF's position was that they weren't responsible for withholding, not that the taxes weren't owed.
> Geithner didn't attempt to hide his tax liability. It was in plain sight. When it became more troublesome to avoid paying taxes than to square up, he simply paid them. I don't understand the political drama behind this. Geithner simply wasn't a tax cheat.
Almost every "forgot to pay" person meets that template, and we call them tax cheats.
> Like many other entrepreneurs I know, I'm also very sympathetic to the idea of not paying taxes until you have to.
Except that Geitner wasn't an "entrepreneur", he was supposedly a public servant.
The Treasury department includes the IRS. You remember them - they're in charge of enforcing "voluntary" compliance.
As to "it's too complicated", he's supposed to be smart guy. They even told him the rules AND he signed documents yearly acknowledging that he understood those rules AND he accepted money to pay these taxes.
So people like me, entrepreneurs who have not always filed on-time, also disqualified from office. Got it.
Help me understand you, Andy. What are you getting at? That he owed back-taxes? I agree. He was given extra money at the time he incurred the taxes to cover the taxes. Agreed completely. Tim Geithner owed back-taxes.
Lots of people owe back-taxes. Plenty of Republican businesspeople think its their moral duty not to pay taxes as long as possible.
You're a tax cheat when you reorganize yourself as a shell S-Corporation, claim that a reasonable annual salary is $5,000, and then take your entire annual income as a distribution. Thousands of people do this, most will never get caught.
I have a hard time believing that simply not paying what you owe, or even filing an incorrect tax return, makes you a "cheat". Lots of people get audited. Many of them will owe. Most of those people are not cheaters.
By "more liable than a normal person", I chose a confusing set of words to make the point that Geithner's tax situation was more confusing than my mom's: he was effectively self-employed, even though he held a long-term salaried full-time job.
As a businessperson paid in LLC distributions instead of W2 wages, I'm sympathetic to the complexity of self-employment tax. When you fail to pay taxes on time, you aren't a criminal. You simply incur interest and (in some cases) penalties. Penalties are frequently waived.
Like many other entrepreneurs I know, I'm also very sympathetic to the idea of not paying taxes until you have to.
Geithner didn't attempt to hide his tax liability. It was in plain sight. When it became more troublesome to avoid paying taxes than to square up, he simply paid them. I don't understand the political drama behind this. Geithner simply wasn't a tax cheat.