"This is the sort of question you might ask after trying to actually verify his supposed MS in Information Technology from the University of Maryland, College Park campus. The registrar has no record of it.
"I have already queried the White House concerning this and have heard nothing back."
Wow. This looks like a total muff in checking the background of quite an important (supposedly) government official. How many more errors of background checking like that have happened?
If you take any user on HN, and send an 2 or 3 IRS accountants pouring over their tax records for 3 or 4 weeks, they will turn up something. So tax issues I can see, if they were mistakes, and the person owns up to them and pays the back due taxes. That is the kind of investigation you WANT your public officials to undergo. And yes, given a byzantine tax regime, mistakes SHOULD be common. In fact, the guy to look closer at is the one who has 30 years worth of perfect tax paperwork.
This is a different thing altogether. It SEEMS . . . I'm not saying this is the case . . . but it SEEMS that these guys were not even checked out. That, in my view, should be actionable. Why were they put in their positions, leadership ability? intelligence? because they are minorities? what?
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter, because the inconsistencies outlined in the article are of the sort that lead reasonable men to question a candidates integrity. I have no problem giving a guy a shot in my company if he only has a high school diploma. Got a criminal record and you're trying to get your life back on track? Hell, let's see if we can help each other. But I will not countenance a liar, no matter how well qualified.
Consider that if they are liars, then these two are supremely unqualified. My decision becomes easy . . . IF they are liars. Which I am not prepared to say they are on the basis of this article alone.
As an aside, I would like to address the whole issue brought up in the article's comments of academic credential exaggeration being a 'cultural' issue in India.
That's fine, but this is the United States. As a younger man I attended lots of government sponsored "leadership" courses in the armpit of the East Coast, a place called Quantico. The first time I ever went to Quantico was for Platoon Leader's Class for the United States Marine Corps. I learned the first day about what was expected of me as a leader in the United States. ANY integrity violation, (lie, cheat, or steal), and you would be gone. But nothing else could get you thrown out! Yep, that drunken brawl with those Navy Academy pricks at the bar in DC, not a problem. Just don't lie about it. Was that you at that strip club during last weekend's leave? Yes Sgt. Instructor, but did you see the girl? Just don't lie. Point of the story, they didn't make exception for the Japanese guys, or the black guys, or the latinos because of any "cultural issues" those guys may have had. Enough said on that I think.
"As an aside, I would like to address the whole issue brought up in the article's comments of academic credential exaggeration being a 'cultural' issue in India."
Just to make it clear, this is not an accepted cultural norm in India. There was no "issue" brought up in the comments. Some jackass claimed this was a "cultural issue" in India.
Is it a problem? Sure. Getting degree confirmation data out of a university is still a very painful process and can take weeks if not months. Some companies don't bother and some people do take advantage. If any half way decent company finds out that an employee lied on his records, the employee is fired immediately. Almost every company in India((Infosys, TCS, Wipro whoever)) takes great pains to verify the credentials of its employees. Over time the Universities have gotten better at setting up systems to help employers.
are there people who abuse this system to exaggerate their degrees? sure. Are there body shopping companies who lie ? sure.
but to suggest this is a "cultural issue " in India based on some half assed comment on a blog as a reality and react to it is a little presumptuous imho.
"That's fine, but this is the United States."
No that is not fine , and there is no difference in India either. If you lie and are found out it is a certainty you'll be fired and a police complaint registered. Just fyi.
The rest of your comment makes important points. Upvoted.
PS: and Kundra is hardly "Indian". He was born in India, sure, but left when he was one year old and never came back. I believe he grew up in Tanzania and the United States. Amazing how "Indian culture" reaches half way around the world and influences him and overwhelms the culture(s) he grew up in eh? ;-)
> If you take any user on HN, and send an 2 or 3 IRS accountants pouring over their tax records for 3 or 4 weeks, they will turn up something. So tax issues I can see, if they were mistakes, and the person owns up to them and pays the back due taxes.
While true, that's not the sort of mistakes that Obama's people have made.
The treasury secretary signed a form every year that he worked for the IMF acknowledging that he was being given extra pay for certain taxes. He cashed the check as well. He then didn't bother to pay the taxes.
This is the sort of thing that "little people" go to jail over. It's a firing offense in the IRS, one of the Treasury agencies.
And, this didn't come out after he was nominated. It came out during the "vet". (When he was told that it was an issue, he paid, but penalties were waived. Think that you'd get that sort of treatment.)
Does anyone think that the current treasury secretary is the only person who could do that job as well? I'm pretty sure that there's someone who is tax-clean who could do at least as well.
"Little people" do not go to jail over not paying taxes. In rare cases, "little people" get audited and pay back taxes, interest, and (sometimes) penalties. To go to jail over taxes, you have to use illegal means to conceal your liability. Geithner didn't do that.
Thank you, bilbo0s. One of the best posts ever on hn. We get so caught up in all the fuzzy other things going on, we often overlook the binaryness of ethics.
But I will not countenance a liar, no matter how well qualified.
I've seen guys blow million dollar deals because they misled the customer on hundred dollar issues. I could never understand why they would do something so stupid until I realized that it had usually worked before.
They weren't especially serious lapses, if I recall.
I think it's that a large number of people have, at some point in their life, fudged on their taxes. I'm not sure we should be surprised that this is the case in a few appointments out of hundreds.
The details in both Daschle and Geithner's cases are fairly weird:
Daschle's mistake was in not reporting a free car/driver as a gift (and hence not paying taxes on the value). There's a whole other conversation to be had about the culture of ex-Senators getting free stuff from rich friends "out of the goodness of their hearts", but it's not like the guy just decided not to pay a bunch of taxes.
Geithner screwed up by not paying his own SS/Medicare taxes while he worked at the IMF. The wrinkle is that unlike most private-sector or government jobs (which is where he was before and after his time at the IMF), international organizations (or at least those) don't do automatic payroll deduction of those specific taxes, so you have to deal with it yourself. Again, not a super-common situation.
So, yeah, these guys screwed up, were in positions where they should have known better, and it's fair to hold them accountable. But it's a little unfair to suggest that they were acting in bad faith when I'm not sure that I at least would know the arcana of those rules off the top of my head (though it makes a fabulous argument for simplifying the tax code...)
To look at it another way: Daschle underpaid by $140K while making millions, knowing full well that he may want to get back into government (which would involve vetting). Is it more likely that he: a) was knowingly risking his future career by not reporting the car service that he knew was a reportable gift; or b) being blissfully ignorant of how those rules worked?
You are right. Thinking that they are doing it purposely is a bit harsh.
But I do think it's fair to be worried that cabinet members are "blissfully ignorant" about other matters if they are about their own careers and matters with severe punishments.
These are really Fox News-caliber points we're making here. The exact same logic says that someone with a bad credit score shouldn't be qualified for a high-level government job. If you believe that, fine, but then I get to believe you're dumb.
Not paying taxes on time simply isn't a crime. We have an entire IRS with bookcases full of regulations dedicated to handling situations where people dispute or are delinquent with their taxes. In both the Geithner and the Daschle cases, the system worked: they paid their taxes and the interest they owed on them.
I suggest you look into the details. They all seem like mistakes I could have made by accident. And, like I said, lots of people fudge their taxes a little. Not outright fraud, but maybe not declaring something if they aren't sure if it's taxable or not.
Daschle's main problem is that he did not declare as income the limo and driver that was provided to him by the company he was consulting for. It's not like he was laundering money through shell companies in Antigua.
Geithner didn't pay taxes on-time because the IMF has a genuinely funky tax setup which made him liable for self-employment taxes. His tax status was disputed during his time at the IMF. He paid his back taxes with interest. He was liable for more taxes than a normal person, and he paid them. What's your point?
> Geithner didn't pay taxes on-time because the IMF has a genuinely funky tax setup which made him liable for self-employment taxes. His tax status was disputed during his time at the IMF.
There's no dispute. He was given an explicit and extra reimbursement for SS. He signed a letter every year acknowledging receipt of that money and that he owed the money.
And no, he wasn't "liable for more taxes than a normal person". For some reason, the IMF treats its senior staff as self-employed and all self-employed people pay both halves of SS in the US.
And, he had the penalties waived.
And, if he hadn't been nominated, he'd have never paid. He said as much during his confirmation hearings.
There's no dispute today. There was during his tenure at the IMF.
By "more liable than a normal person", I chose a confusing set of words to make the point that Geithner's tax situation was more confusing than my mom's: he was effectively self-employed, even though he held a long-term salaried full-time job.
As a businessperson paid in LLC distributions instead of W2 wages, I'm sympathetic to the complexity of self-employment tax. When you fail to pay taxes on time, you aren't a criminal. You simply incur interest and (in some cases) penalties. Penalties are frequently waived.
Like many other entrepreneurs I know, I'm also very sympathetic to the idea of not paying taxes until you have to.
Geithner didn't attempt to hide his tax liability. It was in plain sight. When it became more troublesome to avoid paying taxes than to square up, he simply paid them. I don't understand the political drama behind this. Geithner simply wasn't a tax cheat.
> There's no dispute today. There was during his tenure at the IMF.
No, there wasn't any dispute. Someone has to pay SS taxes on earned income. US employers can be forced to pay half and deduct the other half. The IMF thinks that it is exempt from following US law wrt withholding, but that doesn't eliminate the requirement.
More to the point, the IMF GAVE Geitner money specifically to pay these taxes AND had him sign a form saying that the taxes were his responsibility. IMF's position was that they weren't responsible for withholding, not that the taxes weren't owed.
> Geithner didn't attempt to hide his tax liability. It was in plain sight. When it became more troublesome to avoid paying taxes than to square up, he simply paid them. I don't understand the political drama behind this. Geithner simply wasn't a tax cheat.
Almost every "forgot to pay" person meets that template, and we call them tax cheats.
> Like many other entrepreneurs I know, I'm also very sympathetic to the idea of not paying taxes until you have to.
Except that Geitner wasn't an "entrepreneur", he was supposedly a public servant.
The Treasury department includes the IRS. You remember them - they're in charge of enforcing "voluntary" compliance.
As to "it's too complicated", he's supposed to be smart guy. They even told him the rules AND he signed documents yearly acknowledging that he understood those rules AND he accepted money to pay these taxes.
So people like me, entrepreneurs who have not always filed on-time, also disqualified from office. Got it.
Help me understand you, Andy. What are you getting at? That he owed back-taxes? I agree. He was given extra money at the time he incurred the taxes to cover the taxes. Agreed completely. Tim Geithner owed back-taxes.
Lots of people owe back-taxes. Plenty of Republican businesspeople think its their moral duty not to pay taxes as long as possible.
You're a tax cheat when you reorganize yourself as a shell S-Corporation, claim that a reasonable annual salary is $5,000, and then take your entire annual income as a distribution. Thousands of people do this, most will never get caught.
I have a hard time believing that simply not paying what you owe, or even filing an incorrect tax return, makes you a "cheat". Lots of people get audited. Many of them will owe. Most of those people are not cheaters.
And of course, it turns out that what looks like a total muff in checking Kundra's background is just par-for-the-course negligent linkbait from Dvorak:
"I have already queried the White House concerning this and have heard nothing back."
Wow. This looks like a total muff in checking the background of quite an important (supposedly) government official. How many more errors of background checking like that have happened?