Ok this isn't funny any more

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**Frazzled**

Another candidate withdraws due to tax issues. Does anyone in Washington

ing pay their taxes?
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9646DBG0&show_article=1

Official: Performance czar withdraws candidacy

Feb 3 10:41 AM US/Eastern
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN and LIZ SIDOTI
Associated Press Writer Comments (23)

Second Major Obama Administration Nominee to Withdraw

‘98 Flashback: Daschle Pushes For No Mercy Prosecution Of Tax Cheats

Obama Still Supports Daschle Cabinet Nomination After Tax Mess Revelation

WASHINGTON (AP) - Nancy Killefer, who failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help, has withdrawn her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government, the White House said Tuesday.
Killefer was the second major Obama administration nominee to withdraw and the third to have tax problems complicate their nomination after President Barack Obama announced their selection.

"Nancy Killefer has decided to withdraw her nomination, and we accepted her withdrawal," Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said Tuesday. The 55-year-old executive with consulting giant McKinsey & Co., was expected to explain her reasons for pulling out later in the day.

When her selection was announced by Obama on Jan. 7, The Associated Press disclosed that in 2005 the District of Columbia government had filed a $946.69 tax lien on her home for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help.

Since then, administration officials refused to answer questions about the tax error, which she resolved five months after the lien was filed. Obama's first choice for commerce secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, took his name out of consideration when his confirmation appeared headed toward complications because of a grand jury investigation over how state contracts were issued to political donors.

More recently, Timothy Geithner was confirmed as Treasury secretary despite belatedly paying $34,000 in income taxes, and Tom Daschle is still waiting to see if his late payment of more than $128,000 in income taxes will harm his nomination to be health and human services secretary.

On paper, Killefer brought impressive credentials to the two jobs Obama selected her for: deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, which requires Senate confirmation, and a new White House post, chief performance officer for the entire federal government, which does not require confirmation.

Killefer oversees McKinsey's management consulting for government clients. During 1997-2000 in the Clinton administration, Killefer was assistant Treasury secretary for management. As such she was the chief financial officer and chief operating officer for the Treasury and its 160,000 employees and led a modernization of its largest component, the Internal Revenue Service.

But for nearly a month, the administration had refused to answer how its choice to make government workers more efficient and more responsive had bungled her household payroll taxes.

The AP reported that on March 7, 2005, the D.C. Department of Employment Services slapped a tax lien on her home in the tony Wesley Heights neighborhood. The local government alleged that just three years after she left the high-powered Treasury post she began to fail to pay unemployment compensation tax for a household employee. And she failed to make the required quarterly payments for a year and half, whereupon a lien for $946.69 was placed on her home.

That sum included $298 in unpaid taxes, $48.69 in interest and $600 in penalties. The lien was filed March 7, 2005, but Killefer didn't get the lien extinguished for almost five months, not until July 29.

During that period, Killefer and her husband, an economics professor, had a teenage son and daughter, but she had two nannies and a personal assistant to run her life when she was on the road, she told Harvard business students back then.

**Ahtman**

$298? Really? I had that happen once (though for less then 298, but I also probably make less as well) and you don't find out about it if there was an error in your return for at least five months.

**BloodofOrks**

Good god, really? Again? This is getting sad.

**ShumaGorath**

298 dollars!? That fiend! The IRS could have bought a Wii with that!

**Frazzled**

Or 29 Indian laptops...

**Polonius**

Actually, I think this is hilarious. Apparently we're so starved for scandal that a couple hundred bucks in unpaid unemployment taxes are the best grist for the mill. Remember this isn't income tax, it's the tax all employers pay on their employees to fund unemployment. That does seem like something that again is more likely to slip through the cracks. Again, you'd imagine that somebody who hires people to run their life would have somebody to explain that you have to pay taxes when you hire somebody, but this sort of mistake really seems more like bad staff work and error rather than malice or an attempt to cheat.

**Frazzled**

Actually it sounds like they hired "undocumented workers" for their household staff.

**dienekes96**

Frazzled wrote:Actually it sounds like they hired "undocumented workers" for their household staff.

Ding-ding, we have a winner.

**Polonius**

Frazzled wrote:Actually it sounds like they hired "undocumented workers" for their household staff.

Is there any actual evidence of that? I'm not being facetious, but the article didn't mention it. That would be a more serious problem, of course. It's also possible that the person hired wanted the money under the table, or that there was an agreement over who paid unemployment taxes (the old independent contractor loophole). There are lots of reasons to not pay taxes.

**Frazzled**

-Didn't pay household staff
-Household staff not part of a service
-If they are regular household staff you would be putting them on a tax form, else they are paying them in cash.
-Why paying them in cash?
Just a bet, but that sounds like SOP.

**Polonius**

In other words, no, there is no evidence so far.

It could also be somebody that wanted to take the money under the table. Or were underage. Or It was a temporary job that expanded. Or it went from casual labor (mowing lawns and babysitting) to staff work gradually. To assume it involved undocumented workers seems specious. It's certainly illegal, but that doesn't mean it HAD to be illegal.

**ShumaGorath**

Frazzled is making baseless and totally unsubstantiated claims? SHOCKER!

**dietrich**

This seems like a pretty trivial matter, and I'm a little surprised that she withdrew her name. It makes me suspect that the Obama camp asked her and Daschle to withdraw their names, but Guitner was appointed by the Senate, so I think that Killefer would have been too. I'm disappointed, because based on everything that I read and heard, she sounded like an excellent candidate.

So will her official statement say that she's withdrawing because:
1) She doesn't want to embarrass the new administration and/or distract from what they're trying to accomplish.
2) She wants to spend more time with her family.

**LuciusAR**

£298???

This could well be the most trivial attempt to smear a politician I've heard in ages.

**Frazzled**

ShumaGorath wrote:Frazzled is making baseless and totally unsubstantiated claims? SHOCKER!

Amazing isn't it.

Having said that, if its nothing, then why did they withdraw her name? More to the story? Mayhaps she was a doctor in her previous profession...

**Nofasse 'Eadhunta**

Frazzled wrote:Or 29 Indian laptops...

Or 62 bags of apples

Or 2 boxes of Taktikul Marienz

Or 5 video games

Or could have gotten it exchanged for 29, 800 pennies

Or could have donated it to sponsor a starving child in a place that was advertised as Africa but is most likely China or something ridonkulous like Jamaica

The list goes on...

**Frazzled**

The problem of course is that the 29,800 pennies might have required several bags to carry them. That adds to the cost. On the positive you could use said pennies to pay your tax bill. Hey its legal tender for all debts, public and private no?

**Nofasse 'Eadhunta**

Aye, and that method will save some space in your piggy bank too

Pennies might end up out of use anyway, I've heard the rumors. Might as well get rid of them.

Now my question is, does that rumor float in America too? I've heard it up here in the Land of Polar Bear Riders, Maple Syrup, and EH?.

**warpcrafter**

You could buy some of the less stable small African countries for that!

**Polonius**

warpcrafter wrote:You could buy some of the less stable small African countries for that!

Yeah, but that amount of debt you have to assume still makes them a bad deal. Buying a $100k house for ten bucks is still a bad deal if there's a $200k mortagage on it. And most african nations are in really bad neighborhoods.

**ShumaGorath**

Having said that, if its nothing, then why did they withdraw her name? More to the story? Mayhaps she was a doctor in her previous profession...

Guess what? Swift boat never happened. Obama isn't muslim. The clintons never murdered anyone. Idiot neocon douche bags will run with anything, and they will run it all the way to the bank/ground. The less childish dubiousness there is in the Obama cabinet the harder it will be for the yellow journalism of conservative talk radio to lampoon then for being wiseguys. Also anything that keeps Sean Hannities smug yet semi slowed face having something to make noise about is a plus.

Or do you believe bill clinton is a murderer?

**Frazzled**

Shuma, clearly you are in need of remedial education on the classics; Poe, Steinbeck, Peter Sellers...

You missed the Dr. Strangelove reference.
"Mr. President, we cannot allow a MINESHAFT GAP!"

**dietrich**

ShumaGorath wrote:Also anything that keeps Sean Hannities smug yet semi slowed face having something to make noise about is a plus.

I don't agree with many of your opinions, but I have to agree with that keeping Hannities quiet is a good thing. I always think he looks constipated.

And we need to do whatever is necessary to preserve our precious bodily fluids.

**ShumaGorath**

Shuma, clearly you are in need of remedial education on the classics; Poe, Steinbeck, Peter Sellers...

I'll admit my classic literature experience is limited. I'm not much of a novel reader (though I enjoy writing).

**Frazzled**

You can't shut him up-he's literally saying the Republican talking points of the day, and nothing more deep. He is as shallow as his blowdryer's electrical cord is long.

**ShumaGorath**

Frazzled wrote:You can't shut him up-he's literally saying the Republican talking points of the day, and nothing more deep. He is as shallow as his blowdryer's electrical cord is long.

Does that mean we just need to trick him into taking a bath?

**Frazzled**

There's a mental image I may never get out of my brain...

**ShumaGorath**

Frazzled wrote:There's a mental image I may never get out of my brain...

Then my work here is done.

**Frazzled**

You evil, evil little happy face avatar...

**ShumaGorath**

Frazzled wrote:You evil, evil little happy face avatar...