Happy Tax Day! Aren’t you happy that it’s Tax Day? I sure am, because it’s an opportunity to kick around Tim Geithner some more. (I can’t believe he got knocked out in the first round of Deceiver Madness!)
If you just got back from a sabbatical on Neptune, Herr Mr. Geithner is the brand-new Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. Which is kind of weird, because between 2001 and 2004 he didn’t pay $34,000 in taxes. What’s even weirder is that Congress knew about this before they confirmed him. And he didn’t pay it until after Obama nominated him. He says it was because of a TurboTax error, which has not really enhanced his rep as Smartest Guy in the Room.
All of which, according to the LA Times, has led to some red faces around the IRS:
The Treasury secretary, who oversees the Internal Revenue Service, didn’t pay all his taxes. Neither did a few other top nominees for President Barack Obama’s administration. Now, as tonight’s tax deadline looms, some Americans are rhetorically asking: What would happen to me if I did the same thing?
The resentful reaction to such disclosures resonates not just among the anti-tax people organizing protests around the United States on Thursday but in low- and high-income neighborhoods — and is even discussed in the hallways of the IRS…
“Our members are upset and angry,” said Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, referring to concern bubbling up inside the IRS over strict rules that can cost IRS agents their jobs if they make a mistake, while Geithner and others are treated with relative leniency. In addition, the Geithner case is making the work of IRS compliance agents a bit harder, she said.
The biggest factor affecting tax compliance this year may be taxpayers’ inability to pay because of the poor economy, but the problems of the Obama team add another layer of complaint to the grumbling of taxpayers already feeling stretched.
Ya don’t say. Who knew that putting a cross between Lyle Lovett and Tony Soprano in charge of making sure we’re all honest would cause any hurt feelings?
If you go to one of these tea parties today — after dropping off your taxes, of course — be sure to say a little prayer for poor Mr. Geithner. Even if it’s a prayer you can’t speak aloud in polite company.
(Oh, and if you’re wondering how these guys keep getting away with this stuff, The Onion explains it all.)
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I had to laugh when I heard on the news last night that the IRS is being more sympathetic and understanding to those us mere mortals who cannot make their payments on time. SUUUUUUREE they are. Let’s see that last. The only good news that came out of me being laid off 2 times last year and getting my Masters degree is that we get a tax refund this year. Better save it cause next year is a whole new ball game.
Yeah for Tea Parties!!!
If I didn’t pay my taxes for that amount of time, I’d probably be in jail. This bonehead gets to be treasury secretary. I’m sure someone has said this somewhere but it’s like the proverbial fox watching the henhouse. Of course, he probably thinks taxes are for the little people.
I’m waiting for the next local Democrat–and in SW Georgia, they’re thick as buffaloes–to warble something about a REPUBLICAN “culture of corruption”. SOMEBODY’S gonna get a Nine West suppository.
‘a Nine West suppository’…heh heh, good one, Beige. Would I sound totally misanthropic if I said that most of the politicians of both parties are corrupt?
As soon as the Geithner tax story broke last year, my husband and I looked at each other and said, “Dump him.” I’m not buying the TurboTax error, either – in Geithner’s situation, you should just grow up and hire an accountant. That’s what they’re for, people!
Nine West suppository – the best thing I read today. Thank you for making Anti-Tax Tea Party day even better. And yes, both parties have their skeletons, but it seems as though Obama managed to get most of the most corrupt ones on his team. I have seen my employees get liens on their paychecks for not paying city, state or federal taxes and you can bet your booty they were not 4 years in the hole. More like 1 to 2 years.
But no worries, the Obamas have a new pet so all is well in the world. Let’s forget the real stuff like taxes, War, piracy, debt, unemployment, you know the stuff that is really bad.
I had it wrong. I thought Tax Day was earlier than this.
You have to admit, it takes talent to unite that many different demographics in a singular “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” rage.
A TuroTax error?
So let me get this straight – the guy RUNNING the people in charge of the tax code can’t even figure out how to do his taxes without a computer program helping? Might just be time to start thinking about a flat tax folks.
I’m more surprised that “The Onion” made fun of Obama.
Death to the needle nose, pencil neck geek!
** Sends lawyers, guns and money**
HEE! “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” wins the day for me. And since when does the IRS accept “TurboTax ate it” as an excuse? Last I heard, they were the one and only government agency that placed the burden of proof on citizens, not the other way around.
Oh–and ScottF: When the guy running the country can’t open his arrogant foiegras-hole without a teleprompter, what better can we expect from his minions? I can’t wait to see what sort of paint-by-numbers and Play-Doh BS happens when these gits get hold of the National Endowment for the Arts.
“I’m more surprised that “The Onion” made fun of Obama.”
In the past I’ve thought some of their pieces were unfair – not because of what they parodied, but because the parody started from a false premise of the nature of the thing they parodied – but on the whole I like them, and I think they’ve genuinely maintained a sense of humor throughout the years, unlike some other satirists and comedians.
Scott F. – the Turbo Tax reference caught me too. I looked on the web a little and don’t see any solid evidence that he uses Turbo Tax but if the man that is in charge of the tax code needs help to fill out the forms there is something seriously wrong with this country.
Heck yeah! I went to a tea party!
I just want to know if I can get away with never paying taxes again if I say I am trying to build my resume to become “Obama-Cabinet-ready”. Wasn’t it Biden who said it was patriotic to pay your taxes? Methinks he needs to let the Cabinet in on that little gem. I hadn’t even thought about the standards for the “average” IRS agent, but I can definitely understand why they are upset. Different rules for the people at the top, what a morale booster! Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t liberals supposed to be against letting the fat cats profit while sticking it to the little guy?
Silly AllyKat, just drink the Kool-Aid and admire the puppy.
Well at last count the total number of people BO has nominated for cabinate postions without tax problems is 2. Not a lot to instill confidence in people who claimed he was the most moral and fair person since Abraham Lincoln.
Did everyone see where someone tossed a box of tea on the lawn of the White House and they had to send out the Bomb Robot to investigate it. lol
I’d sooooo buy the TurboTax error excuse coming from someone who works for the IRS…I don’t mean no disrespect or nothing (triple negative, I rule), but I’ve always been under the impression that the dumbest, laziest and nastiest motherf***rs among us choose to go work for the gov’t (IRS, Immigration, USPS – can’t forget those, etc.). I’ve been working at the law office for quite some time and had to deal with the IRS on a daily basis – we would apply for the ITIN on behalf of some clients, sometimes we’d file the taxes for some of the clients, too. From my experience, the IRS people are really really dumb. The things they would do…They’d make an already stressful job a whole lot more stressful. They change their rules and regulations all the time (especially when it comes to the ITIN) with their employees usually having no clue what those rules and regulations are. You send them a filled out form along with the copies of all the necessary documents…and they just send it all right back to the client with the letter that instructs the client to submit the copies of the very documents they had just sent back to them. Nothing the IRS people do surprises me.
Whoa there, Nati–my husband is a Department of the Navy employee. He’s so smart he can see around corners.
You’re probably right about the IRS, though. And didn’t Clinton arm them w/12-gauges, or was that a rumor?
Yeah, whoa is right. I’m former USDA.
I did work with stupid cows though.
The quadrupedal kind.
Hee, Minnow. I’m a former DoD contractor, and I worked with–and for–more than a few stupid bipedal cows. One of them used to regale everyone in a 40-foot radius (cube-farm environment) with every. Horrifying. Detail of her sexual exploits over the weekend, despite having been begged and instructed NOT to do so. We were all just jealous, y’see. Not everyone is cut out to be a Springer guest.
I used to consult with the Coast Guard and those folks were really sharp, besides being total Boy Scouts. I’ve never admired a client more.
My guess is that the government has about the same ratio of dumbass losers to competent people as the private sector. ‘The Office’ isn’t completely fantasy.
Hey, whoa yourselves! I didn’t say that everyone who works for the gov’t is a lazy, nasty, dumb individual. I just said that it looks like most dumb, lazy, nasty people in our society decide to go work for the gov’t which would explain the high concentration of dumb, lazy, nasty people at the gov’t offices. Of course, there are smart, nice, intelligent and decent people working for the gov’t as well.
Beige, I didn’t even mention the Dep’t of the Navy…nor did I mention USDA, Minnow…or the Coast Guard, MC Mom. I mentioned the three that I have to deal with…and that irritate the s*it out of me. IRS and the Immigration because I had to deal with them on a daily at work. And USPS enrages me on a personal level as a private citizen. You guys had to work with some not so smart gov’t employees…try dealing with them on behalf of your boss’ clients. You’d lose your minds. The unprofessionalism, the bad attitude and the sheer stupidity of SOME of those people are just unbelievable. And the reason that I assumed that most people who work for the IRS are less than smart is because I was never given a reason to think otherwise. The second they changed their requirements we have requested the new forms and started filing them and submitting all the documents in compliance with those new requirements. They would send the applications back with lists of the required documents stapled to them. I mean, come on…you are looking at that list, you are looking at the application, you are looking at the documents. If you can’t put 2 and 2 together and see that everyhting was done right and just approve the application, I’m sorry, but you have to be f***ing stupid. And I’m not talikng about just a couple of the applications – ALL of them were rejected, every single one. It’s unlikely that all of those forms just ended up on a desk of one dumb employee mistakenly hired by the IRS, right? So what does it tell you? That most people who work there don’t know what the hell they are doing and take quite a while to adjust to the new rules THEY HAD COME UP WITH! I actually don’t know if the clerks there ever realized that their rules have changed – I managed to find a supervisor who knew what he was doing and I just started to send all of the applications to that particular person. Didn’t have any problems after that. So yeah, just like I said – there are smart and nice people who work for the gov’t, too, but I doubt that they make up majority of gov’t employees.
In Nati’s defense guys, you have to divide government jobs where that expect results vs. those where incompetence is seemingly not only accepted, but expected.
Someone screws up at the USDA, believe me you’ll hear about it. Same with DOD jobs, the military, most intel agencies, ect. These are also fields that attract really sharp, generally college (and usually in a USEFUL field like engineering or chemistry) educated and self-motivated people. I mean, I think the only requirements to be a DMV employee is to be slightly above room temperature and have a chip on your shoulder – does that mean I think NASA employees are morons?
On the other hand, it has REALLY pissed me off that there seems to be this perception that people only join the military because they ‘have no other options’. I was Marine Corps intelligence, and you would not believe how many times I had to listen to “hehe, isn’t that an oxymoron?” To which I would usually reply, “how many languages do YOU speak? Ever been trusted with a multi-million dollar piece of equipment? Can you kill a man sixteen different ways with a shoe-shine kit?” Granted, that last one has very little to do with intelligence or competence, but it does usually shut them up.
Yeah, I was sort of talking (typing?) out of my ass last night (as usual) and lumped all of the government employees together…I was mostly talking about the IRS, though, didn’t mean to insult anyone in the Department of the Navy/USDA/Coast Guard…or anyone else, for that matter. lol Thanks for coming to my defense, Scott. I wanted to mention the DMV, too…and the social services…but was afraid someone would rip me a new one. Anyway, I was talking about the IRS, the Immigration and the freaking post office in my last night rant, didn’t mean to offend any other gov’t agencies or their employees.
I wasn’t offended.
Just pointing out that the blanket statement had a few moths going at it…
I just didn’t phrase it right, I’m sorry, my bad *makes a puppy face*
And I just wanted to say this about the Immigration (since I mentioned them, I might as well explain), when it comes to dealing with them, the problem is not their not knowing what they are doing (unlike with the IRS, with the Immigration that was rarely an issue), but rather the bad attitude. I also would like to clarify that when I posted here initially and mentioned the unprofessionalism and incompetence of some of the gov’t employees, I was refering to the gov’t offices most of us have to deal with on a regular basis, like the offices the private citizens often file paperwork with or where they have to apply for something – like the Social Security administration, the DMV, the USPS, the IRS, the Immigration, the Dep’t of State, etc. – some of the employees there tend to give everyone the same trademark “Who’s the bitch now?” attitude and that’s what I was talking about when I called SOME of the gov’t employees unprofessional. When I said “people who work for the government” I didn’t even make an association with, say, the USDA or the military in my mind. I was thinking only about the organizations I have mentioned and their employees, so yeah, my bad, should have thought about other gov’t agencies and expressed myself more clearly.
I feel you on the government-employee thing, Nati, when it comes to IRS and State Department people in particular. I had to deal w/embassy and consulate personnel in the PRC, and they seemed to have taken it as a personal quest to be as unhelpful, rude and vicious as possible. Unbefrigginlievable.
Thanks, Beige. I just thought I’d try to explain again because my initial post came out all wrong. I didn’t mean to insult you or your husband (or anyone else), I just can’t seem to be able to express my thoughts properly at times. There ought to be some sort of a special course I could (and should) sign up for – “Expressing your thoughts on the Internet for dummies: getting out what you are trying to say and making sure it comes out right, makes sense and doesn’t offend other people”…
Minnow will probably still squash me like a bug…when she sees my post in the Rush Limbaugh thread…
I haven’t seen it yet, Nati; I’m working my way through the threads backwards today.
I’ll send you a hug now, before I explode, ‘kay?