GOODY TWO SHOES: High Taxes For Thee, But Not For Me
The Wall Street Journal asks: “Ever notice that those who endorse high taxes and those who actually pay them aren’t the same people?” The paper holds up House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) as prime example for “leading the charge” to levy a 5.4-percentage point income tax surcharge on the rich (“the moral thing to do”) when he doesn’t scruple to apply the same standard of morality to himself. Rangel underreported rental income he received from a posh beach-front villa at the Punta Cana Yacht Club in the Dominican Republic by $75,000 and then failed to amend his tax returns and his annual financial disclosure form – plus, he missed the May 15th deadline to pay the tax he owes on that rental income. Rangel also gave himself a tax break by claiming a homestead exemption on a home he owned in Washington, D.C., from 1971-2000, at the same time he claimed that his primary residence consisted of several rent-stabilized apartments in NYC (one of which he used as an office, and as not a domicile).
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