Saturday, February 07, 2009

How President Obama Can Help Pay for the Stimulus Plan

According to Unpaid Taxes Equal $2,680 Per Household, over $300 billion of taxes go unpaid and uncollected every year. While Congress and the IRS have been proposing programs to collect this money, I think President Obama has shown us an quick way to identify and collect unpaid taxes -- nominations for posts in his administration.

Let's look at Mr. Obama's tax collection effectiveness. Timothy Geitner paid $34,000 in back taxes and Tom Daschle paid $128,000 in back taxes after they were nominated for the Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of Health and Human Services, respectively. The husband of the nominee for Secretary of Labor, Rep. Hilda Holis, recently paid $6,400 in taxes owed by his business.

Here's my recommendation to President Obama. Instead of increasing taxes for the wealthy, Mr. Obama could purposely nominate people that may have unpaid taxes, triggering the payment of taxes owed and the subsequent withdrawal from consideration. After going through about one million nominees, the IRS would collect an additional $30 billion if the average tax owed was $30,000.

Now that's change I can believe in :-)

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This is not financial or tax advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

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