Charlie Rangle's Tax Issues

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574376720192072820.html

Earlier this month the Chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee "amended" his 2007 financial disclosure form—to the tune of more than a half-million dollars in previously unreported assets and income. That number may be as high as $780,000, because Congress's ethics rules only require the Members to report their finances within broad ranges. This voyage of personal financial discovery brings Mr. Rangel's net worth for 2007 to somewhere between $1.028 million and $2.495 million, while his previous statement came in at $516,015 and $1.316 million.

When you're a powerful Congressman and working diligently to increase tax rates to pay for President Obama's health-care plan, we suppose it's easy to lose track of one of your checking accounts. That would be the one at the federal credit union with a balance somewhere between $250,001 and maybe as high as $500,000. And when you're crunched for time and pulling together bills to pass in a rush, we guess, too, that you might overlook several other investment accounts, even if some of them are sizable, such as the ones Mr. Rangel missed at JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Oppenheimer and BlackRock.

And now introducing, the guy who writes the tax code! What if you or I did this? I doubt we would be let off so easily.

Charlie Rangel’s Unpaid Taxes

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574300013592601036.html

"Chairman Charlie Rangel, who is leading the charge for a new 5.4-percentage point income tax surcharge and recently called it 'the moral thing to do.'"

So is it the moral thing to do to pay one's own taxes?

"Mr. Rangel soon admitted having failed to report rental income of $75,000 over the years. First he blamed his wife for the oversight because he said she was supposed to be managing the property. Then he blamed the language barrier. 'Every time I thought I was getting somewhere, they’d start speaking Spanish,' Mr. Rangel explained."

But he promised to pay them so all is well and good right?

"Mr. Rangel promised last fall to amend his tax returns, pay what is due and correct the information on his annual financial disclosure form. But the deadline for the 2008 filing was May 15 and as of last week he still had not filed."

Well that was just a one time thing due to the language barrier right?

"The House Ethics Committee is investigating Mr. Rangel on no fewer than six separate issues."

"The Committee of Ways and Means is the chief tax-writing committee of the United States House of Representatives" Source

And this guy is the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee?