Do as they say: Charlie Rangel’s tax reporting
Today's Financial News - Posted September 23, 2008
For someone who’d like to slam the evil rich with special taxes, Rep. Charlie Rangel has a strangely tenuous grip on his own reporting. “Forgetting” to report rental income from his Caribbean beach retreat may be just the beginning… or his version of the two Americas. Click here to view!
by J. Christoph Amberger
Baltimore — (TFN): Just a year ago, in October of 2007, Congressman Charlie Rangel, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, unveiled his plan to slap a 4 percent tax-rate surcharge on adjusted gross incomes over $200,000 for married couples.
That surcharge would climb to 4.6 percent for those with income of more than $500,000. Households with income of more than $200,000 would have to pay rates as high as 19.6 percent on capital gains and dividends, instead of the current rate of 15 percent.
He found a willing audience among the Oba-bah-bah-ma crowd: What, after all, is more Democratic than taking from the rich and buy votes among the poor, disenfranchised… or merely envious.
Rangel’s grasp on his own income taxes seems to have been just a tad less — grasping.
He failed to disclose rental income from his beach home in the Dominican Republic. Apparently, the four rent-controlled apartments he leases — one of them with money from his re-election fund and from a political action committee — are insufficient to allow a congressman of the people to recreate in style.
Rangel admitted owing at least $10,000 in back taxes. He is also scrambling to explain why he didn’t properly disclose the sale of a Washington, DC, home in 2000, the various and wildly divergent values he placed on his former Sunny Isles, Fla., condo, and the outrageous fluctuations he recorded for his personal investments.
As I am writing this, Congressional Democrats, with their high moral double standards, are circling the wagons around one of their own.
Like his colleagues Al Gore and John Edwards, he is living proof that there are two Americas, after all.
One for Democrat politicians.
And another one for the rest of us.
Next Article: Crisis? What Crisis: Take 40% profits on Freddie Mac (FRE)!
Posted by J. Christoph Amberger · Filed Under Featured Video, Politics, Videos
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