On Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:40:56 -0800 (PST), riverman
wrote:

On Jan 14, 6:30*pm, "Tom Littleton" wrote:
"riverman" wrote in message

...
My feeling is that, unless it could be shown that he either acted
maliciously by deliberately misfiling his taxes or instructing his tax
accountant to misfile, or else if he chose to ignore the advice of his
tax advisor who told him certain back taxes were due, then he fell
afoul of the same set of complex tax laws that many Americans struggle
with.

Myron, I agree with much of what you say, except for this: when errors like
this occur, you become aware of them quickly. There is no reason for it to
take 3 years, and coincidentally the prospect of a Senate Confirmation
hearing, *to rectify things. And that is the case no matter who actually
prepares your taxes.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Tom

Understood, but in this case, his tax advisor said he didn't actually
owe the back taxes.


Er, no. He prepared his own taxes, had them reviewed by an accountant
(I've heard it was a friend, and I've not heard them described as a "tax
advisor"). Not to mention...

If I had the IRS saying 'You owe $30,000' and my
tax consultant saying 'Actually, its their error and you don't (and
there is a mechanism in place to challenge them if it comes to that)",
I'd be tempted to hold off also.

....that the IRS had already told him he owed money, which he paid, way
back before most folks knew who Obama was (2006). For someone who wants
to be Sec. of the Treasury, you'd think he'd know how he was employed,
and that he was self-employed for tax purposes, especially since he was
doing his own taxes. If nothing else, one is tempted to wonder why he
figured that he didn't owe certain taxes that other folks owe.

As to the whole alleged "the tax advisor told me..." thing, if he had
listened to a tax advisor who told him he didn't owe SE tax when
self-employed, he's a bigger idiot than the alleged advisor.

Then, if I was suddenly tapped to be in the Presidential Cabinet, I
might want to just surrender the battle and pay the money. But until
then, I think the law allows taxpayers to challenge the IRS. The
article I linked to said upwards of HALF of all expat employees make
the same 'error' in their tax filing as he did. Hell, I might be even
making it myself....

Yeah, but half of them aren't supposed to be qualified to run the
department that oversees the very agency that he claims confused him.
Moreover, in this case, we're not talking about some arcane
sub-sub-sub-chapter of tax code that would confuse the people who wrote
it, we're talking about SE tax - he should have seen it on his W2(s) or
lack thereof.

I've heard that the IMF warns/instructs employees affected by this of
their status, but ???

--riverman
(or maybe not. Nominate me for a cabinet post and let's see.)

Is this a big deal? Who knows at this point...

HTH,
R