Here he is apologizing for not paying taxes:
“Careless mistakes, unavoidable mistakes, but they were unintentional.”
Is that so?
While the Turbo Tax excuse may or may not be true, there are a number of other things that are clear:
Tom Blumer, writing at Newsbusters, points out,
the International Monetary Fund, Geithner’s 2001-2004 employer, partially reimbursed him for his Social Security and Medicare “self-employment tax” liabilities.
This IMF reimbursement wasn’t just a check, it came with a lot of notices:
The IMF did not withhold state and federal income taxes or self-employment taxes — Social Security and Medicare — from its employees’ paychecks. But the IMF took great care to explain to those employees, in detail and frequently, what their tax responsibilities were. First, each employee was given the IMF Employee Tax Manual. Then, employees were given quarterly wage statements for the specific purpose of calculating taxes. Then, they were given year-end wage statements. And then, each IMF employee was required to file what was known as an Annual Tax Allowance Request. Geithner received all those documents.
To top it off,
IMF employees were expected to pay their taxes out of their own money. But the IMF then gave them an extra allowance, known as a “gross-up,” to cover those tax payments. This was done in the Annual Tax Allowance Request, in which the employee filled out some basic information — marital status, dependent children, etc. — and the IMF then estimated the amount of taxes the employee would owe and gave the employee a corresponding allowance.
At the end of the tax allowance form were the words, “I hereby certify that all the information contained herein is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and that I will pay the taxes for which I have received tax allowance payments from the Fund.” Geithner signed the form. He accepted the allowance payment. He didn’t pay the tax. For several years in a row.
Geithner also didn’t pay taxes on on wages paid to domestic help.
Blumer, writing at Pajamas Media lists other problems with Geithner, among others, Giethner’s performance as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since 2004 and his role in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
The Republicans should be asking really tough questions on this nomination for Treasury Secretary.
Where are they?
