Timothy Geithner, President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee for Treasury secretary, says he didn’t pay his federal self-employment taxes for four years because he “forgot.” That is no longer a credible explanation in view of today’s reporting by National Review’s Byron York. Geithner accepted reimbursement from the International Monetary Fund specifically to cover federal taxes totaling $42,702 he had not paid, according to Senate confirmation documents examined by York.
This is damning because on the IMF’s Annual Tax Allowance Request, Geithner promised to “pay the taxes for which I have received tax allowance payments…” In truth, he didn’t pay those taxes until it was brought to his attention, first by the IRS in 2006, and now as part of the vetting process for his Treasury nomination.
Geithner received an annual reminder from the IMF that he owed self-employment taxes. He applied for a reimbursement each year from 2001 through 2004, but then pocketed the cash instead of forwarding it to the IRS. Doing so four years in a row is not merely an “honest mistake,” as the Obama transition team maintains. Unless he’s comfortable with a tax scofflaw overseeing the IRS, Obama should withdraw Geithner’s nomination.
