Dallas Blog

Are there any Obama appointments that DON'T have tax problems?

His paid preparer is an idiot. I am no CPA and even I know that such funds are considered income for which you get to take a charitable deduction.

Apparently Dem politicians can't be bothered to comply with the complicated tax code and pay the taxes they advocate.

So if my "heart is in the right place," do I get to not pay my back taxes, too? Or do I have to become a Democrat to qualify?

The hypocrisy of a massive spend & tax , spend & tax, and ... administration -literally filled with people who don't pay their own taxes until caught - advocating ever increasing taxes for others to pay for socialist programs for those who pay no taxes in the first place pretty much sums up the "change" this administration portends.

This may sound like sarcasm, but I am perfectly willing to separate this country in two to allow our socialists the opportunity to realize their utopian dreams now - without waiting until they can convince the productive members of society to join their kum ba yah cause or to have their cause subject to the ebb & flow of politics.

I will choose the free capitalist half, but send the neosocialists on their way with good wishes.

At issue is two seperate transactions. The speaking fees are income which must be reported as such. Any charitable donation comes out of total income, and is not a one for one trade, nor can you do this as a "pass through". The income is yours to declare, and therefore it is taxable. Not one article talks about the total income amount Kirk earned in 2008, 2007, and 2006. The Morning Snooze reported some month ago very large six figure income amounts (making him the "rich" 'Bama wants to tax the crap out of) that Kirk received for lobbying activities alone.Add to that corporate Board fees and speaking fees and other income (whether from the Law firm partnership distributions, etc) and you get a very different picture of these nominees...Good thing they want to be paid government wages with government benefits now - so they can avoid the 2011 tax spanking. LOL.

True, this is relatively unimportant stuff compared to Kirk's record of high-dollar lobbying for energy companies.

In 2007, Mr. Kirk helped usher the buyout of TXU Corp. through the Texas Legislature. He reported lobbying income that year of $745,765 from Energy Future Holdings, the private equity partnership that purchased TXU, according to ethics commission records. Mr. Kirk earned between $25,000 and $50,000 from Merrill Lynch; state rules allow lobbyists to report income specifically or as a range.

In 2008, Mr. Kirk reported total lobbying income between $75,000 and $150,000.

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/national/stories/121308dnnatkirk.3ba21ad.html

Interesting coincidence that both Laura Miller and Ron Kirk are well-paid shills for energy companies. How "progressive" of them.

Note to Amy S:

Count you in as one who believes that "He(Kirk) Shouldn't have to pay taxes on it!?!" From one who deals in cookbooks (or is it cooking the books)that is downright funny funny funny!

Consult your CPA- soon. Simplistically speaking, if you were to make a $10,000 charitable donation and you are in a 35% tax bracket, you are entitled to a mere $3,500 offset against any income tax owed on your total income, and you are not entitled to take the full amount of the donation as a one for one credit against your taxes. (The Bush years made some exceptions post 9-11 and Katrina on increasing deductibility factors of certain types of donations and amounts).

Every taxpayer is responsible to know that they are required to declare ALL income received, no matter what they decide to do with it (which includes burning it or giving it all away), and are required to pay the total taxes associated with that income - no exceptions.

Apparently, being an Obama cabinet member means never having to say you are sorry for not paying your fair share of taxes- but it does mean you have no trouble and lose no sleep raising taxes on the rest of us. Real tax burdens and high tax rates kill honest hardworking and economy stimulating small company business people, while taxes are easily avoided and amounts owed are easily circumnavigated by political lobbying millionaires the likes of captains Kirk and Daschle.

Another irony to all this is that in Obama's proposed budget, he wants to put a cap on the amount that people earning over $250k/year can deduct for contributions to charities.

@ JustDesserts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH2d_PlN0XU

One more thing. Austin College is a private, Presbyterian College(accredited institution), is granted tax exempt status. If we were arguing about Kirk giving all his speaking fees to another school that many on this blog might not personally approve of, say for example, instead of Austin College, how about gifting all speaking fees to the accredited law school founded by the late Reverend Falwell? Would there be a different opinion of Kirk's actions? Making the point about what constitutes a charity, and what is or is not to be allowed as charitable tax free giving is the point.

First of all, you could make the argument that Mr. Kirk never actually received any of the money - it went straight to the charity.

You could make that argument on your way to jail for tax evasion, yes. (Unless you are a Dem politician, in which case you are offered a position in the White House.)

I'm a CPA and this really is Tax 101. The damning statement is this:

""honoraria that he did not collect -- they were recorded as a donation to his school -- but, in some cases, did deduct," as Ben Smith puts it for those not interested in reading the entire report..."

You can't deduct income that you never acknowledge earning. I have a hard time criticizing because I'm sure his tax return is VERY complicated, but this really is a pretty basic issue.

A tax professor several years ago brought up a similar issue on Hillary Clinton's tax return. He pointed out that all the income from her book "It Takes a Village" was being treated as a charitable donation. She still had to acknolwedge the royalties from the book as income and the record the deduction.

Jeff W - since you are up on current tax law:

If he had not declared the deduction, and the money was issued in the name of and sent directly to a non-profit that Kirk had no direct control over, would the income be non-taxable then?

Because I'm still mulling how some servicees (i.e. selling boy scout popcorn or girl scout cookies) can provide a non-profit with tax exempt revenue, but other services (like making a speech) can't. Obviously, the first sells a product, but there is still an implied "value" to the service of selling the product.

I don't understand what AmyS is asking. How can selling cookies provide a non-profit with tax exempt revenue? It's a non-profit. It's already a tax exempt organization. Non-profits are allowed to raise money and some do it by "fee for service" or by selling stuff, in addition to writing grants, annual campaigns, and good-old-fashioned asking rich people for money.

Ron Kirk is not a non-profit organization. If Ron Kirk earns any fees for speaking then it is de facto income; he should have gotten a 1099 regardless. Now, if the non-profit that I work for earns an honorarium for my speaking at an event on its behalf, it is not income to me, but is a donation to the non-profit. As far as I know, Ron Kirk does not work for Austin College, was not being asked by Austin College to speak about Austin College to a professional group, but was speaking as Ron Kirk: Lobbyist, or Ron Kirk: Private Citizen, or whatever. He just decided to donate the income that he earned for himself to Austin College.