Archive for May 22nd, 2013

Flashback: What happens when a tax-evader runs the IRS?

May 22, 2013

I’m a bit surprised that this retro-snit hasn’t come up in the current IRS flap …

Think back to early, 2009.

Newly annointed President Obama nominated Tim Geithner to be Secretary of the Treasury.

During his confirmation hearings, Geithner ran into an “issue”.

It was revealed that Mr. Geithner, he failed to pay payroll taxes on income he received from the International Monetary Fund in 2001, and then repeated the error in the three subsequent years, despite explicit disclosures and instructions from the IMF, and with the help of an accountant.

According to the WSJ:

Apologizing to the committee, Geithner took responsibility for what he called “careless” and “avoidable” mistakes while insisting they were unintentional.

He acknowledged signing an IMF statement at the time that he understood he had been reimbursed to pay those self-employment taxes, adding that he should have read the statement more carefully.

In his testimony, he laid blame on his TurboTax software

Why is this important?

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NetTrax: What’s the fundamental difference between designer shoes and cars?

May 22, 2013

From an online retailing perspective it’s simple …

Once you buy a car you’re probably out of the market for awhile

… but once you buy a pair of designer shoes, you’re probably going to buy more of them.

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Why does that matter to an online retailer?

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