Shocker! Another Obama cabinet nominee had tax problems

Boy, who could imagine this story. Now former Dallas mayor and the nominee for Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, has admitted that he failed to pay taxes on speech honoraria. His mistake was due to his sending the money to his alma mater and not realizing that he had to pay taxes on it along with some other minor mistakes.

Kirk's tax problems, according to the committee, were largely based on his failure to pay taxes on honoraria that he earned from speaking. He had not paid taxes on the income because he had asked that the fees be diverted to his alma mater, Austin College, to fulfill a pledge to a scholarship fund.

The committee said he also deducted too much from his taxes from the purchase of season tickets to NBA Mavericks games. And it said he incorrectly apportioned accounting fees between his partnership forms and his personal income tax forms.

Kirk also overstated the value of a television he donated, valuing it at $3,000 instead of $1,500, the committee found. And he did not have an acknowledgment letter for a $900 donation.

While I would have thought that most experienced political figures would know that you have to pay taxes on money earned even if you're donating it to a charity, it doesn't sound like a mistake committed from avarice or an unbelievable profession of ignorance as Tom Daschle and Tim Geithner's tax errors appeared to be. What it does demonstrate once again is how complicated our code is. If the politicians given the responsibility for enforcing the tax code for their particular jurisdictions can't understand it, what chance do the rest of us have? And now the Obama budget plan includes even more tinkering with the tax code. Apparently, they haven't learned the lesson for the need to simplify, not complicate the thing.