Posted on 02/23/2009 1:57:28 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
For years, the press excoriated Nancy Reagan for borrowing clothes and jewelry from designers. Yet Michelle Obama has been doing the same thing without any outcry from the media.
Accountants say that the first ladys practice of borrowing both clothes and jewelry raises major tax and disclosure issues, not to mention ethical questions.
The transactions are clearly taxable, says Richard Rampell, a Palm Beach, Fla., accountant whose clients include several of the islands billionaires. The designers are indirectly paying Michelle Obama to go and display their wares. And they get a huge economic value for it, just as if they were paying a model to do this. If they are paying her in this indirect way by lending her their clothes, then she is actually performing a service for the designer, and she should have to recognize as income whatever the value is of the clothes that she got.
Aside from the tax implications, Obama is obligated to report the value of the clothes she has received free of charge on government forms mandated by the Ethics in Government Act.
The items Obama has either borrowed or received free have included a $17,313 pair of Loree Rodkin diamond earrings and clothes and gowns worth $1,000 to $6,000. In some cases, Michelle Obamas representatives have said she will donate the items to the Smithsonian.
That makes no difference, Rampell says.
If somebody gives her a dress and its worth $6,000, and shes not expected to return it, then she has $6,000 worth of income, or shes received a $6,000 gift, he says.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Oh lordy, lordy, lordy. That’s all I can say.
***Seriously, is this photoshopped? This is really on the cover? The First Lady the World has been waiting for? What world?***
On another site, a Freeper said that it’s become common to “slice” off any unwanted inches in magazines. I think it’s obvious that Aunt Jemima’s hips were greatly reduced in the Vogue picture.
This woman has never seen a chenille bedspread she doesn’t like.
Liberal/Socialist motto - Do as I say, not as I do.
There was a lot of editing on those Vogue photos....lots of “post-processing”, as the photogs call it.
Thanks for the chuckle!
The difference is that what the first skank borrows is hideous.
Finger sign or no sign, any given personal photo/portrait (this is not a candid snapshot; it is staged/set-up) is at best “move your _______ a little to the _________; now move your _________ ____________, wait, go back just a little to the ___________ . . . and . . . hold it right there . . . good . . . . and ‘click.’ “
Even if it was a purely coincidental and unintended slip that got by the photographer, it would have been caught in the photo proofs and again in the paste up and again in the edits and again in the final edit and then in the cover proofs. Whatever it is, it is not an accident.
First spouses should never, ever, accept donated clothing or jewelery. If they can’t afford to buy their own clothing, their finances need to be examined.
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