Obama Five show White House double standard on taxes

President Barack Obama says he wants all Americans to sacrifice for the common good. But five of his nominees for high offices failed to pay all the taxes they owed. Former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, nominated as Obama’s U.S. trade representative, is just the latest tax scofflaw on the list. Kirk has promised to pay about $10,000 in back taxes he owes for donating speaking fees to his alma mater, Austin College, deducting season tickets to the Dallas Mavericks, and taking twice the fair market value of a TV he donated to charity. The White House tried to minimize this latest embarrassing revelation, but as Dallas Morning News blogger Keven Ann Willey put it, “This is starting to feel like the Groundhog Day issue of the Obama administration.”

The four other Obama nominees who also had unpaid tax bills include:

•       Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who actually signed for $43,000 he received from his employer specifically to pay his taxes, which he failed to hand over to the Internal Revenue Service. Geithner, who now oversees the IRS, called his multi-year tax dodge “careless mistakes.”

•       Former Senator Tom Daschle withdrew as Obama’s nominee to head the Department of  Health and Human Services after his failure to pay $128,000 in back taxes for a car and chauffer was made public.

•       Nancy Killefer also withdrew her name from consideration as the nation’s top performance officer because she neglected to pay employment taxes for her household help.

•       Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who was confirmed by the Senate despite reports that 16-year old California tax liens totaling $11,640 were levied against her husband’s business. He finally paid up just hours before her confirmation vote even though Solis reported the couple had “between $250,000 and $500,000” sitting in their bank account.

The federal tax code is a confusing, convoluted disaster. But millions of Americans who are now struggling to complete their tax returns by the April 15th deadline would be ill-advised to use the same lame excuses offered by the Obama Five in lieu of paying what they owe. And an administration planning to impose burdensome new taxes on the American people should be a lot more diligent about vetting people who will be responsible for spending billions of tax dollars – and a lot less forgiving of well-heeled insiders who don’t pay their tax bills.