Posted on 02/18/2009 4:17:07 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Alaska officials on Wednesday ruled that Alaska governor and former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin must pay back taxes to the IRS.
The exact amount the governor must pay is not yet known, but the Associated Press estimates she owes taxes on more than $17,000 in per-diem expenses.
State employees who live more than 50 miles away from Alaska's capital, Juneau, are entitled to state aid in the form of per-diem payments. Juneau is approximately 600 miles from Palin's home town of Wasilla, making the governor eligible for the payments.
But before she accepted the vice presidential nomination, Palin charged the state for over 300 nights spent in her Wasilla home, not the governor's mansion in Juneau. Her expenses usually amounted to $60 per day.
On Wednesday, Alaska state officials decided that the per-diem expenses should be counted as taxable income. Palin's spokesman, Bill McAllister, said the governor would pay the taxes.
The story was in the ADN today:
"At the Governor's request, we reviewed the situation to determine whether we were in full compliance with the pertinent Internal Revenue Service regulations," Kreitzer wrote. "As a result of this review, we determined that per diem needs to be treated as income, requiring a revision of W-2 forms for any affected employees."Link
Hey, this make her eligible for a cabinet post doesn’t it? Now if we could just get her parents to say she was illegitimate she’d be eligible for President.
This “story” doesn’t make sense.
It was all cooked up for the sake of having a headline.
Man, I hate MSM.
The point of this story is that they are not BACK taxes, they are taxes for the past year that aren't due until April 15 of this year. Also, she was just informed of this today, from a request that she initiated months ago.
The headline is making it sound like she failed to pay back taxes from prior years, in order to create some moral equivalency with the Obama administration nominees who hid income and avoided taxes for years.
-PJ
Here's another little gem that cBS conveniently omitted when they repeated the story from the ADN.
If, in fact, Gov Palin received a $60 per diem while staying at her Wassila home on 300 days/nights, that’s $18,000 in taxable income.
The determination seems to have been made only today that it is taxable income, and surely the 300 days are spread over a few years. All she has to do is file adjusted returns.
It is not, as the headline hopes to convey, that she is being ‘ordered to pay back taxes.’ But what else would we expect from CBS/AP?
Seems like a rather straight forward non story to me. Unlike 0’s criminals who dodge their taxes, Sarah hasn’t dodged anything.
I respectfully disagree. Per Diems are generally a fixed amount paid in lieu of requiring an employee to itemize actual expenses. If the expenses were not reimbursed, the expenses would be tax deductible. Since they are merely to offset expenses, they shouldn't require being reported as income. I'm certain nobody else pays taxes on their per Diem's, they are trying to make a special case for her, which is unethical and illegal.
So, if the state just decided that Palin owes taxes on per diem payments, does that mean that all the OTHER reps and senators who don’t live in Juneau must now also pay them? And if so, why doesn’t the miserable media say so?
thank you very very much!!! I will be using that tomorrow if any of my liberal co-workers try to smear beautiful Sarah!
Dems can’t attack her, not with Gietner as Treasury Secretary.
$60 per day??? We have pols in Massachusetts that make that much! For going a tiny fraction of the distance Palin has to travel!
When you are paid by the government to do government work out of your home, that’s income. It’s like “telecommuting.”
If the per diem is part of the compensation of your employment when you are in fact, home, it’s income.
The Government of Alaska could make it a condition of the job for the Governor to reside in Juneau during the term of office. AFAIK, there is no such requirement.
I agree it was a scummy story for slanting the way you point out. ‘Pod.
Dood, she was *home*, not TDY.
You are missing the point. If she was “on travel” then I agree with you.
She was home. Not on travel. Therefore - income.
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