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 distances are immense ~ far greater than those of other states, and that's just halfway (Alaska is roughly the size of three Texas' and one Indiana).
The Governor is NOT required to live in Juneau, but "overnighters" are undoubtedly out of the question, plus, there are duties she must attend to in Juneau.
Just figuring out what her perdiem really is constitutes one accounting nightmare. Figuring out what part is taxable is yet another nightmare. The third is that if she's claiming perdiem in Wasilla and then flies off to tend to state business in Fairbanks (for example), she's still on perdiem, but if she returns to Wasilla that's going to be counted one way, and if she returns to Juneau that's going to be computed differently.
Did you know FDR used the IRS as a weapon? He even went after Andrew Mellon the popular Treasury Secretary under Coolidge. Mellon was an expert on tax law so they particular fishing expedition went bust but FDR did manage to send other enemies to jail.
‘Cause they are “the miserable media” just like you said.
Commiecrats are restless, as usual.
*sigh*
Lurking MSM headline writers, snapping fingers with satisfaction: "Got a Republican to fall for it! Yeah!"
In two or three weeks there'll be a quiet retraction of this charge on page 28 of the NYT.
The one clear difference that will be "overlooked" by the MSM when they report blast this over the airwaves and print media, is the fact that she did NOT fail to pay taxes on the per-diem. It was only after the fact that this group decided it was to be taxable income. As opposed to the fact that Obama's cronies actually tried cheating the system, and they got away with it, until they received their nominations.
Mark
Where is the media when Obama’s friends avoid paying taxes? In Sarah’s case we don’t know what the facts are yet, since the media’s agenda is to destroy her political future.
Exactly. They run with supposition in her case while glassing over facts in the cases of prominent Dems.
Yep.
bttt
She initiated the contact with the IRS to see if she and others owed taxes:
“Last fall we raised questions about longstanding practices within the Department of Administration regarding tax treatment of per diem payments,” Kreitzer wrote in an exchange of e-mails over the past few days with the Daily News.
“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.”
http://www.adn.com/palin/story/693695.html
You are right—there is no requirement that the governor live in the mansion in Juneau. By the way, the governor is SAVING the state a lot of money by living in her own home and claiming per diem. $18,000 over a 2 year period-—since she is not living at the mansion, the governor’s personal chef, who earned $50,000 per year, was let go. The very old house costs a fortune to heat, but the thermostat can be turned way down when the governor is not there, etc. Other household help at the mansion is also not needed, so in the long run, she’s saving Alaskans money.
Which I am sure she will do.
The deadline for filing 2008 tax returns is April 15th.
But the Media is trying to make this look like Daschle, Geithner, The House Democratic Caucus, Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle and Sam Sayyad etc.
That makes 25% of Obamas original Hope and Change Cabinet picks comprised by tax evaders. Add that to the fourth scandal of Bill Richardsons pay-for-play federal grand jury investigation, and we have a full-blown vetting disaster. And that doesnt even count new Attorney General Eric Holders politicization of Justice ten years ago on behalf of Bill Clinton in the FALN and Marc Rich pardons, or the dozen-plus lobbyists hired by the President Who Hates Lobbyists.
How embarrassing has Obama become? Even Bob Woodward has begun making fun of him:
Attracting the largest audience to date at the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, Ark., Woodward touched on the new president when he asked the audience of 1,400 how many voted for Obama. Most raised their hands, reports our Suzi Parker, prompting him to say: Now, some of those votes, those hands are suspect. Everybody likes to be with a winner. Then Woodward told a story of seeing a man, after Obamas election, put an Obama sticker on his car. Maybe hell get a cabinet appointmentif he paid his taxes, said Woodward, who later added that the presidents next cabinet appointment will be someone who fills out the short form.
Have we had a more incompetent vetting process in the White House over such a short period of time? When we criticized Barack Obamas lack of executive experience, even we didnt think it was going to be this bad.
“I read somewhere ( cant remember where ), that Sarah Palin herself initiated the board to look into if she had to pay taxes on per diem.”
She has her eyes firmly planted on 2012. She wanted to make sure everything was kosher long before election day and didn’t want to end up being another in the long line of politicians embarrassed by tax scandal.
The media deception is worse than that. Not only did they decide today that the taxes were due they decided today that per diem payments would be taxed at all. If I read it correctly.
you are correct, its sad isn’t it.
Unfortunately for her, and any other Alaska legislators who received per diem payments, it was only decided today that it was taxable so they probably didn't save receipts or keep any records.
I hate the press with a white hot passion. Quislings.
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