[sauropod]

I have to agree with her having to pay the back taxes for this. Most other people w/ jobs and allowances paid to them like this would have to declare their stipend as income.

[muawiyah]

Actually not. THe purpose served for the perdiem issued by the government of Alaska is to enable it to operate. Without it no one would bother getting elected to go to Juneau except, of course, oil executives and fishing interests.

Because of the vast distances involved, and the climate, there are really a lot of different ways to look at the way perdiem is, or should be handled in Alaska.

[Political Junkie Too]

I have to agree with her having to pay the back taxes for this.

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

[pepperdog]

No, Federal Government employees don't pay taxes on per diem. And while I have no knowledge of private industry practices in this area I doubt that business related travel expenses are taxed. But if they were counted as income then they could be deducted as a business expense I would think.

[bitterohiogunclinger]

“Most other people w/ jobs and allowances paid to them like this would have to declare their stipend as income.”

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.

[Syncro]

Most other people w/ jobs and allowances paid to them like this would have to declare their stipend as income.

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.

Not to mention:

That makes 25% of Obama’s original Hope and Change Cabinet picks comprised by tax evaders.  Add that to the fourth scandal of Bill Richardson’s pay-for-play federal grand jury investigation, and we have a full-blown vetting disaster.  And that doesn’t even count new Attorney General Eric Holder’s 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 Obama’s election, put an Obama sticker on his car. “Maybe he’ll get a cabinet appointment—if he paid his taxes,” said Woodward, who later added that the president’s 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 Obama’s lack of executive experience, even we didn’t think it was going to be this bad.