Palin Taxes: Per diems not reported
Gov. Palin, as previously reported, has charged the state $16,951 for more than 300 nights spent at her home in Wasilla since being elected governor because she usually works in nearby Anchorage and, under state policy, is entitled to a $60/day "meals and incidental expenses" fee whenever she's working away from her official duty station in Juneau.
On her 2006 and 2007 tax returns, she doesn't report that money as income -- which seems a little strange because she's eating her meals at home, and isn't actually incurring any expense. We asked the McCain campaign for an explanation, and were told that the determination of whether a per diem is "taxable income" is made by the state. Alaska does not include this particular reimbursement on employee W-2 forms.
They also provided a letter defending the tax treatment from a Washington, DC, tax lawyer named Roger Olsen:
"The income tax aspects of fringe benefits are complex and highly technical, and not subject to second-guessing by laymen. The State of Alaska is confident that its position is correct. Its employees were entitled to rely on that determination. So was Gov. Palin."
Any tax lawyers out there? This sound kosher?
Full text of the letter is here.
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Comments (5)
JR
You should check to see how they do it in Albany would will be surprised by the answer.
VJ Machiavelli
http://www.vjmachiavelli.blogspot.com
"Any tax lawyers out there? This sound kosher?"
This is the state of journalism today? Post innuendo without contacting sources, like a tax attorney?
Nathan --
In no particular order:
1. I am trying to find tax attorneys with expertise on this.
2. The blog is a perfectly valid way of supplementing those efforts -- you see if anyone in your audience has the expertise you're looking for.
3. How is a question, and a perfectly logical question, innuendo?
4. You want me to wait a week, to fully report it out, before I let you see the documents I do have and digest what I do know?
5. Yes, this is the state of journalism today -- blogs exist, they have the volume capacity to pass along more raw data to readers.
Mr. Riley --
In your order:
1. I disagree that you'll find them best by posting that question with your intermediate reporting on a political blog. But you may know your success rate better than I do.
2. Fair enough. I will accept that this is just one method of others you are engaged in to ferret out this answer.
3. A question becomes innuendo by its context. When your story is littered with subjective judgments ("which seemed a little strange") and your neutral question ("any tax lawyers out there?") is supplemented by an unnecessary, far less neutral-sounding question ("is this kosher?"), the context renders it innuendo.
4. That's usually standard fare for professional journalists, at least in the past.
5. Blogs are a new medium for communicating the news, and may come with their own strengths and weaknesses, but they don't pre-empt basic news judgment and journalistic practices. We still expect you to evaluate news, find sources and verify what you have before you begin spreading the story (like the Sarah Palin "cheatsheet" post did). Just because you're posting on a blog that doesn't mean you get to skip steps as other blog-users might behave.
As an analogy, journalism exists on the radio, but not all radio is journalism (Rush Limbaugh). They use similar approaches to maximize use of their mediums strengths, but they're distinguished by their respective roles' professional trappings (news reporters by journalism ethics and Rush Limbaugh as a news commentator/entertainer).
It should be no different on the web. ThinkProgress and DailyKos, or Little Green Footballs, might engage in stream-of-consciousness posting and incomplete research that meets blogging community standards, but professional news outlets should meet journalism standards, no matter what medium.
Check out what her state says about 'extended duty'...
http://fin.admin.state.ak.us/dof/travel/resource/tax.pdf