I'm generally against personal ethics systems substituting themselves for public law - that's a big part of libertarianism. I have to chuckle when I read this from James Taranto:
If a certain sort of conservative tends to be moralistic about sex, liberals tend to be moralistic about money. That makes Tom Daschle the equivalent of a televangelist caught in a sex scandal.
[...]
Daschle, who in 1998 said, "Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter" (hat tip: National Review Online), did not pay all the taxes he owed. In particular, he did not pay taxes on the use of the limo, saying he regarded it as merely a "generous offer from a friend."He finally coughed up the money last month, after Obama nominated him. An earlier story on the Post Web site puts the sum in question at $101,943, which covered three years. That's just the tax (plus interest) on his limo, suggesting that its actual value was somewhere on the order of $100,000 a year. In 2007, the median income for a South Dakota family of four was $66,451.
That's quite a good take on it. The soft socialist left tries to impose their personal moral system into our public policy via taxation and redistribution. Daschle failed morally by that measure.
I think everyone is missing the point... the fact that the people who wrote the tax system and who are expected to run it cannot even comply with it should be raising flags that the system is way too complex. These embarrassments to the Obama administration should give impetus to reform of the tax system.
In Daschle's case I think he was trying to get away with something. He started to fix his tax problem in June when it started to look like Obama was going to win the election and Daschle would likely have a spot in the Administration. I don't think it's a situation where he couldn't comply, he just didn't.
I agree with your greater point. The tax code shouldn't be so complex as to require special training in order to understand it.
Only a moron or a politician could fail to understand that this was taxable income. And yes, the tax code is way too complex.
And who will reform the tax system???????
The same politicians who messed it up in the first place.
The stats really are unbelievable, the stakes unquestionably are astronomical, it is tricky to speak about and even more complicated to deal with it. Technologies, counseling, communicating... each of them compete with human nature. Along with each circumstance is unique.