The hype about back-taxes has been haunting President Barack Obama as he attempts to fill Cabinet and sub-Cabinet level positions. Several of his nominees for fairly prominent positions have had to back out of the confirmation process due to owing taxes from previous years.
In fact, the problem is not limited to the president’s nominees.
According to a recent story by the Associated Press, 13 firms receiving federal bailout money owe a combined total of more than $220 million in federal taxes.
If you are like me, you might have thought to yourself why those companies are receiving bailout funds from the general fund that includes your hard-earned — and timely paid — tax money.
What’s even worse is that all 23 firms receiving bailout money had to sign forms stating they owed no back-taxes. However, the Treasury Department did not require them to turn over their financial records in order to verify those statements.
It was the House Subcommittee on Ways and Means that discovered the back-
taxes. In fact, two of the firms alone owed $100 million each.
And this investigation only included an audit of the 23 firms receiving the most money. As Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., said, “If we looked at all 470 recipients, how much would they owe?”
That is a very good question. In a time of increased anxiety of taxes for the general public, we should not be endorsing bailouts to companies that not only couldn’t make quality business decisions, but also did not follow the law and pay their taxes.
People who work hard and pay their taxes are being sent into foreclosure because of losing jobs. Others are holding on by the skin of their teeth, determined not to miss a mortgage payment — even if it means skipping the grocery store and living off ramen noodles and orange juice for the last week each month.
Why is it that these people are not receiving anything?
For the past few months, I’ve heard how the auto industry and the banking system is the “foundation of our economy.” If they go, the entire economy falls. Somehow, I just don’t believe that.
The foundation of an economy should be its workers — in our case, the people of America. If it’s not, there is something wrong.
Maybe we should take this back-taxes issue as a red flag. These companies clearly have no interest in running things as they should. Why should we have an interest in saving them?
If these companies paid their back-taxes, along with the politicians who have decided that the law doesn’t apply to them either, we just might be able to pay for the bailouts, at least in part.
After all, if these companies want our help, it is only reasonable to expect them to do their fair share, too.
Janne is a criminal justice graduate student and can be reached at
janne.gaub@asu.edu.
