Althouse: "Tax Court Rejects Geithner/Turbo Tax Defense."

September 5, 2012

"Tax Court Rejects Geithner/Turbo Tax Defense."

Notes TaxProf.

23 comments:

edutcher said...: Gee, does this mean we'll get to see Timmy (the other one with a perpetual scowl) frog-marched in cuffs out of the Treasury building by the FBI?; 9/5/12, 1:57 PM
David said...: No big surprise.

He knew damn well it was not deductible.

Avoided penalties because of who he was.

Lied about it.

The man is indispensable.

In the sense that Janet Reno was:knowing dangerous secrets.; 9/5/12, 2:01 PM
Revenant said...: Geithner's claim was one of the more transparent lies I've seen uttered by a public official.

TurboTax is very good about prompting people to enter all forms of income and tax information. You can only screw it up if you are completely clueless about finances, which Geithner (for all his failings) is not.; 9/5/12, 2:09 PM
Synova said...: Gah.

For a moment there I thought that Geithner actually had to go to tax court.

But it's just some hapless prole.; 9/5/12, 2:23 PM
Jay Vogt said...: As bad as overstating deductions and credits is, under-reporting income is even worse in the eyes of tax court.

I'm surprised counsel let them even proceed with this action.; 9/5/12, 2:28 PM
Methadras said...: If Geitner can't even do his own taxes and fucks it up via TurboTax, then let him try to do it by hand and see how far he gets. That would have been a better argument. Your Honor, I tried to do it by hand based on the 60k pages in the ever expanding tomes of tax law. Did I get it right? At this point, I think I did. You are saying I didn't. So are you saying you know tax law better than I do? Then can you do my taxes and we can call it even?; 9/5/12, 2:37 PM
Scott said...: A number of years ago I downloaded what I thought were all my option trades into TurboTax. The IRS responded with a $17,000 tax bill. Turns out, the brokerage's computers didn't send all the data. I resubmitted the return on a 1040X, along with about 200 pages of trade confirmations, and an apologetic letter. The IRS changed its mind and sent me a check for $8.

As the post notes, with TurboTax, "garbage in, garbage out." (I'm less afraid of audits now. It seems like a pretty reasonable process.); 9/5/12, 2:51 PM
Christopher said...: Clearly the man is no patriot.; 9/5/12, 2:54 PM
Nonapod said...: As a member of the new American Nobility I wonder what other special privileges Timmy G. has. For instance, is he afforded the Droit du seigneur, allowed to take the virginity of the young serfs maiden daughters.; 9/5/12, 2:57 PM
FleetUSA said...: Ah, the U.S. Tax Court is wonderful at separating the wheat from the chaff.

I remember one opinion that said, "...if it quacks like a duck...."

Anyone can go to the Tax Court to appeal an IRS decision as it doesn't cost a penny (if you file your own claim), but be prepared for ruthless honesty from the judges.; 9/5/12, 3:13 PM
PatCA said...: Only a VIP like Timmy can use that excuse!

After all, he meant well.; 9/5/12, 3:14 PM
test said...: Christopher said...
Clearly the man is no patriot.

9/5/12 2:54 PM

Best line.; 9/5/12, 3:21 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: The stranger president didn't vet his underlings... it makes total sense.; 9/5/12, 3:41 PM
ampersand said...: There should be a constitutional ammendment that forbids any government from taking one penny more than owed. Call it a pound of flesh law. No penalties, no interest, no seizing properties worth more than the tax owed.; 9/5/12, 5:20 PM
gadfly said...: Someone needs to present the Geithner defense to the IRS auditors.

If Little Timmy didn't pay penalties or didn't have to talk to the judge, then what is good for your boss is even better for me!; 9/5/12, 5:23 PM
Big Mike said...: I could never figure out why Geithner was allowed to become Secretary of the Treasury when his defense was that he's too stupid to use TurboTax.; 9/5/12, 9:01 PM
Big Mike said...: I could never figure out why Geithner was allowed to become Secretary of the Treasury when his defense was that he's too stupid to use TurboTax.; 9/5/12, 9:02 PM
sean said...: Jim Lindgren--hardly a Democratic partisan--entered Tim Geithner's data into TurboTax, and determined that the program does indeed, in Geither's rather unusual tax situation, produce the wrong answer even when the information is entered correctly. In the reported case, in contrast, it appears that the taxpayer entered the information incorrectly. I don't know why Profs. Caron and Althouse are unable to appreciate such an elementary distinction. My old tax prof, Babette Barton, would say something cutting, but I will forbear.; 9/5/12, 9:37 PM
Joe said...: The fact that you need TurboTax or, in my case, Tax Act and even then it is very easy to overlook items or enter them wrong due to very poor instructions written by the IRS, it a very strong indication that the tax code is far too complex. It makes it easy for tax payers to make horrible mistakes and for the IRS to prosecute people who did their honest best at filing.

I'll wage that far over 50% of tax returns contain non-trivial errors.

(Then there's the idiocy where a divorced couple can have one spouse claim their children as an exemption while the other can claim the children as a qualifying child for EIC purposes.); 9/5/12, 11:11 PM
Joe said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/5/12, 11:16 PM
Unknown said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/6/12, 6:46 AM
Unknown said...: This is the guy that is supposed to know finances!?! What a joke. Want to raise some needed funds? Just get everyone in Obama's administration to pay their back taxes and "fair share"!

This "tax" stuff is just for the little people. giveback.blog.com is trying to track all of the (rich) people that call for higher taxes on the rich. No reason any of those folks can't just write uncle a check for whatever extra they want to give but they don't do that. They want everyone else to pay their "fair" share...; 9/6/12, 6:47 AM
Lokki said...: Most alarming to me is the idea that a man trusted with the complex finances of the largest economy in the world is using turbotax.

Shouldn't he have had the sense to hire a CPA for his taxes? One could think he could have afforded one.

Of course most CPA's are honest or at least would refuse to knowingly sign a false return so that may have been the reason.; 9/7/12, 7:43 AM