Obama Treasury Sec. Doesn’t Pay Taxes
Barack Obama’s pick to run the agency that promotes economic stability and ensures the nation’s financial security failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in taxes and knowingly employed an illegal immigrant.
Timothy Geithner, Obama’s choice to head the Treasury Department and the ailing nation’s crucial economic rescue, has admitted that he failed to pay $34,000 in taxes from 2001 to 2004 and that his housekeeper was not legally authorized to work in the U.S.
The disclosures were made on Senate Finance Committee documents, which reveal that for years Geithner didn’t pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on his lucrative salary at the International Monetary Fund, an organization with 185 member countries that oversees the global financial system.
The nation’s soon-to-be Treasury Secretary even blew off the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) a few years ago when it notified him that he owed the back taxes as well as interest. It wasn’t until Obama tapped him to head the Treasury Department that Geithner paid back most of the money, according to reputable news reports that also say the IRS waived the hefty penalties. Perhaps the IRS will disclose how many regular Americans—not nominated to presidential cabinets—have received that kind of break.
Geithner, who most recently was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, claims he committed an honest mistake which sounds like a pathetic excuse coming from a man considered to be a brilliant financial markets specialist.
As for the illegal immigrant housekeeper, Geithner claims that, unbeknownst to him, the woman’s legal work status lapsed. The woman evidently worked for the Geithner family for two years but her work papers expired during her final few months of employment, according to Geithner.
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