41 Obama White House aides owe the IRS $831,000 in back taxes -- and they're not alone

LA Times ^ | 9/10/2010 | Andrew Malcom

[Qbert]

Over the years a lot of suspicion has built up across the country about Washington and its population of opportunistic transients coming to see themselves as a special kind of person, somehow above average working Americans who don't work down in that former swamp.

Well, finally, an end to all those undocumented doubts. Thanks to some diligent digging by the Washington Post, those suspicions can at last be put to rest.

They're correct. Accurate. Dead-on. Laser-guided. On target. Bingo-bango. As clear as it's always seemed to those Americans who don't feel special entitlements and do meet their government obligations.

We now know that federal employees across the nation owe fully $1 billion in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service.

As in, 1,000 times one million dollars. All this political jabber about giving middle-class ...

... Americans a tax cut. Thousands of feds have been giving themselves one all along -- unofficially. And these tax scofflaws include more than three dozen folks who work for the president with that newly decorated Oval Office.

The Post's T.W. Farnum did some research and found that out of the total sum, just 638 workers on Capitol Hill owe the IRS $9.3 million in back taxes. As in, overdue. The IRS gets stiffed by the legislative body that controls its budget. How Washington works.

[Snip]

Privacy laws prevent release of individual tax delinquents' names. But we do know that as of the end of 2009, 41 people inside Obama's very own White House owe the government they're allegedly running a total of $831,055 in back taxes. That would cover a lot of special chocolate desserts in the White House Mess.

[WOBBLY BOB]

[kcvl]

Ah, so this is why the Dems have no problems letting the Bush tax cuts expire for the 'wealthy'...because they don't pay their taxes anyways...

Exactly!

[Gator113]

Every last one of these losers should be immediately fired, period.

FIRE THEM or we won’t pay..... seems fair to me.

[bohica1]

.....and I bet these better than thou government folks are still managing to live high on the hog without a care of ever paying a dime. Pisses me off. My daughter lost her business [economy]....she lost everything.....her house included......she moved in with me so she could at least have a roof over her head and food on the table.....she finally found a job paying minimum wage.....has to claim the highest amount for taxes deducted to pay what she owes [which is fine since she owes], but these double standards .......pisses me off to no end! How many other every day americans are in the same boat as my daughter....

[paul51]

silly. taxes are for little people

[kcvl]

In the House of Representatives, 421 people owe a total $6,524,892. In the Senate, 217 owe $2,774,836. In the IRS’ parent department, Treasury, 1,204 owe $7,670,814. At the Labor Department, where Secretary Hilda Solis’ husband had some back-tax problems before her confirmation, 463 owe $7,481,463. Eighty-one workers for the Federal Reserve System’s board of governors owe $1,076,733.

Over at the Justice Department, which is so busy enforcing other laws and suing Arizona, 1,971 employees still owe $14,350,152 in overdue taxes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/irs-federal-workers/index.html

[Gabrial]

The solution to this is so simple. The government should simply garner the wages of these people until the employees defrauding the government have paid the money back. Problem solved.

[Qbert]

“This is crazy. The highest paying WH job pays in the mid 100’s, I believe, and those are the most senior advisors. My guess is that the average pay for a “White House Aide” is probably somewhere in the $60k-80k range...”

Well, I’m guessing the stated salary is...is not the ‘real’ salary, if you know what I mean...

But even more to the point, the back taxes might be for positions the aides held before they joined the WH, or other income sources.

[Explodo]

I've got a different take on this one. To me, it seems as if these folks were discretely told they don't have to pay their taxes. Then, after time, they become loyal slaves to the powers that be because they are now breaking the law, and if they aren't ideologically pure to the one, they are then held accountable for their tax burden.

In other words, this is how The administration ensures loyalty

[kcvl]

Civilian retirees - 40,000 - $ 454,938,448

U.S. Postal Service - 27,807 - $ 283,365,996

Homeland Security - 4,856 - $ 37,012,174

Health and Human Services (Welfare) - 2,841 - $ 37,327,491

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation - 155 - $ 2,249,326

Executive Office of the President - 41 - $ 831,055

Justice - 1,971 - $ 14,350,152

[hoosiermama]

This is crazy. The highest paying WH job pays in the mid 100's, I believe, and those are the most senior advisers. My guess is that the average pay for a "White House Aide" is probably somewhere in the $60k-80k range. In 2009, to have a tax liability of $20,268 (the average of the 41 aides), taxable income is $93k. And that is for single filers. Married filers would have taxable income over $100k.

Could it be that they are "subsidizing" their WH pay with under the counter cash? What are they selling?

[Qbert]

“...Over at the Justice Department, which is so busy enforcing other laws and suing Arizona, 1,971 employees still owe $14,350,152 in overdue taxes.”

I can’t wait for the hearings about all of this to begin after November (...there *will* be hearings, right GOP?)

[Blood of Tyrants]

Wait, the LA Times and the Washington Post are reporting NEGATIVELY on Obastard’s White House and their sense of entitlement? This can mean only one thing; Obastard is being thrown under the bus and will NOT be their candidate for the 2012 election.

Get ready for a Hildebeast candidacy.

[gnickgnack2]

So totally wrong, Gab!

Yes, they should be garnished (including the draconian interest and penalties), but from their new non-government jobs. This is an abuse of their offices, a deed of mistrust and illegal. They should therefore be canned with a total loss of any gov’t pension.

Or we should all just not pay our taxes. If everyone did that, it would overwhelm the system and shut it down. They couldn’t come after everyone. Isn’t that the proper way to deal with this problem, according to our Alinskyite _resident?

[melancholy]

Ping..................

The government slugs don’t pay their taxes, giving themselves tax cuts!

The rest of us, peons, get tax raises.

Abu Bama’s inaction, as usual.

[George from New England]

Is there a single reporter at the live Obami press conference with the nuts or such to ASK THIS QUESTION?

[Red in Blue PA]

“former swamp.”

WTF is this?

And it has been drained how????

[Qbert]

“.....and I bet these better than thou government folks are still managing to live high on the hog without a care of ever paying a dime. Pisses me off. My daughter lost her business [economy]....she lost everything.....her house included......she moved in with me so she could at least have a roof over her head and food on the table.....she finally found a job paying minimum wage.....has to claim the highest amount for taxes deducted to pay what she owes [which is fine since she owes], but these double standards .......pisses me off to no end! How many other every day americans are in the same boat as my daughter....”

What you are saying is what a lot of Americans feel and are experiencing, and unfortunately some of the blue blood establishment Republicans still don’t/don’t want to understand this.

So many in the media want to label every day Americans as ‘extremists’ and ‘wackos’ for being angry about this kind of corruption, in order to try to make people back down...and feel ashamed about their anger; make people question if this anger will lead to supposed violence. Which is absolutely stupid, of course- that’s not how we handle things (and when have every day Americans *ever* done that?)

There *will * be a revolution this November to attack this corruption...at the voting places.

[Gabrial]

Good points both.

I had a thought of putting my taxes this year in a blind trust with instructions to the trust manager only to release the funds to the Federal Government when all 43 Obama aids paid their back taxes in full.

[bt_dooftlook]

Actually - it is worse. Federal employees already pay $0 in taxes; their taxes are paid by federal taxpayers. Easy way to tell if you're a taxpayer - your reaction should taxes go to 0%. If you are a taxpayer, you are happy to keep your own money; if you are not a taxpayer, you lose your job, your benefit, etc.

What this is saying is that some federal employees are so ungrateful at being supported by taxpayers that they choose to keep even more of the taxpayer's dollars instead of rebating some back to the IRS.

IMHO...YMMV