You all know more about finances, taxes, etc. than I do. All I know is what I learned from 13 years running a small business that used seasonal contract labor (typing during term-paper season). The Geithner case is a perfect example of why people don’t trust the government. My business offered neither the monetary help nor the repeated warnings that apparently the IMF did. Every year, however, those workers got 1099 forms and every year they paid their taxes. They didn’t try to see what they would get by with. They didn’t “forget.”
It isn’t fun to pay taxes. It isn’t always easy. But they did good work and they were honest. I don’t figure anyone is too brilliant for character to matter – not when it comes to determining policy that apparently others will be expected to follow and setting up debts that others will be expected to pay. (Geraghty – thanks to Instapundit – has been doing blog research: responses from accountants, users of Turbotax, etc. Of course, no matter what the system or who the accoutant, garbage in leads to garbage out.)
I like the idea of having an edge on the Secretary of the Treasury, the next time I have to deal with the IRS.