The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Politics => Topic started by: TheSarge on September 15, 2008, 03:25:31 PM
-
House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel of New York admitted last week that in recent years he has underpaid his taxes by about $10,000. Republicans are demanding that he step down as chairman pending an Ethics Committee investigation, but we're more sympathetic. Charlie is a victim of the tax code he helped to write.
His lawyer says Mr. Rangel flubbed his tax return by failing to record some $75,000 of rental income he received from a beach house he owns at a posh Dominican Republic resort. Mr. Rangel professes to have made an honest mistake, and says "I personally feel that I have done nothing morally wrong." He explained that he didn't know how much income he received from the property because his Dominican business partners would "start speaking Spanish."
Plenty of Americans know how he feels since the IRS tax form might as well be in Spanish. The tax code now runs to some 67,000 pages, and Mr. Rangel has probably written a few thousand himself in his 38 years on Capitol Hill. If even the nation's top tax writer can't figure out what to declare as income, and what not to declare, how can the rest of us be expected to get it right?
Not that the IRS will show Joe Taxpayer any mercy. In most disputes over even honest mistakes, the tax collectors presume guilt. Mr. Rangel is also one of those who like to denounce corporations that shield income overseas. He'd better hope both the IRS and his House colleagues treat him with more forbearance than he and they treat private citizens or businesses. Who knows, maybe Mr. Rangel will even take this embarrassment as new motivation to work with the next President on tax reform. How do you say "flat tax" in Spanish?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122143394599834065.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks
-
That's all well and good, but how many people have been destroyed by those same tax laws? What, rangel gets a pass?
If the government can destroy everyday individuals with the tax code, then it is fitting that rangel be its latest victim.
-
I am a mean, evil conservative, so I have no sympathy.
BTW, what is he doing, investing in income property overseas, anyway. Isn't that an eveil conservative Republican thing? What about the jobs he is moving overseas when he does that?
And what about all those people who live on Fire Island and other posh resorts in NY? They are loosing out on Charlie's payroll when he moves it down to the Carribian (sp????!#@!!) aren't they?
I also fail to see how he can 'forget' :thatsright: $100,000. I get 1/4 that, so for me that kind of money is kind of memorable. But if you are a democratic congresscritter, you loose that kind of pocket change behind the cushins in the couch all the time.
-
If Charlie was a White member of the GOP he would not only loose his Chairmanship but his seat would be in danger also ....
-
He explained that he didn't know how much income he received from the property because his Dominican business partners would "start speaking Spanish."
:rotf:
How could this NOT be an Onion story?
Was his bank account in Spanish too?
:lmao:
-
If he had the payments go to an account in the DR, then couldn't he be accused of keeping his wealth off-shore like the evil corporations?