Politics: Tax troubles

Its easy to criticize the latest nominees with tax troubles.

But I have to give them a break.

There are two likely reasons people have tax problems:
(1) the tax laws are complicated and people make boo-boos
(2) they are engaging in tax evasion and got caught.

If the reason the nominees have tax issues is because of #1 then they should just apologize and pay up and get confirmed.

If it can be shown that it is reason #2 then they should be rejected and penalized.

My taxes aren't very complicated but when I go through the Turbo Tax program, I sometimes get this weird feeling ... am I making a mistake somewhere?

I still remember getting a stern letter from the IRS a few years back saying, I could be penalized for not paying estimated taxes! I'm still not clear what happened that year as to why the amount taken from my paycheck wasn't enough such that I had to pay owed taxes on April 15.

Since then I have tended to overpay and get a refund. Of course, if I was more savvy about taxes I'd avoid overpaying because overpaying is giving the government money that could be sitting in my bank earning interest!

And so if I have made "mistakes" in my taxes and my financial situation is uncomplicated, I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to these folks.

UPDATE: Daschle has withdrawn. Geithner survived while Kellifer and Daschle have withdrawn. I'm not sure on substance how different were their various tax problems. Perhaps some issues were worse than others. And perhaps there were other political dynamics that were contentious that caused two of these three to pull out.

UPDATE: Heard on that the amount of taxes bumbled by Kellifer was relatively small but she felt she had to pull out. With that in play, Daschle whose tax problems involved much larger sums of money had no choice but to pull out too. Additionally, there were concerns about some of Daschle's lobbying activities post-Senate life.