Ho-hum. Another Obama nominee doesn't pay taxes
Obama HHS nominee Kathy Sebelius informed the Senate Finance Committee yesterday that she paid nearly $8,000 in back taxes and interest due to "unintentional errors" in her 2005, 2006, and 2007 tax returns.
Hey, did you hear about the Obama nominee who paid their taxes? Neither have we. But we accept tips.
Kathy Sebelius, President Obama's pick to head up the massive Health and Human Services department, is the latest Obama Cabinet nominee to have tax issues.
Broken record?
In a letter to the Senate Finance Committee yesterday, the Kansas governor said she paid a total of $7,040 in back taxes and $878 in interest because of "unintentional errors.''
"In preparation for my confirmation process as the nominee for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, my husband and I hired a Certified Public Accountant to conduct a thorough review of our tax returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007. That evaluation revealed unintentional errors, which we immediately corrected by filing amended returns," she wrote.
Sebelius joins an ever-growing list of Obama nominees who have discovered a few tax problems after being nominated.
There was Senator Tom Daschle, who was Obama's first HHS nominee, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, performance officer Nancy Kelleher, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.
No problem
If there is any outrage, you couldn't find it yesterday. Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sent out a statement indicating his full support.
"Congress is going to need a strong partner at the Department of Health and Human Services to achieve comprehensive health reform this year, and we have that partner in Governor Sebelius," he said.
The administration isn't signaling concern yet either.
"In Ms. Sebelius's case, an administration official said that the White House vetting process turned up some minor tax issues, but officials determined they were too insignificant to prevent her nomination," reports the Wall Street Journal.
Oops
Our blogging pal Andy Malcolm at the LA Times uncovered yet another controversy. This one could be the most embarrassing yet. He reports that another major nominee has quietly removed his name from White House consideration.
"Apparently as part of the crack Obama transition team's vetting process, they discovered that the nominee had paid all of his federal taxes through 2008," Malcolm writes. "Not only that, but the would-be nominee had, in fact, overpaid his federal income taxes since 2005."
To read the rest of the shocking revelation, click here.
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