Introduction
Former Sen. Daschle, President Obama's pick to head the Department of Health and Humnan Services, became the latest high-profile appointment to be sidelined by unpaid taxes. Questions about Daschle's failure to fully pay his taxes from 2005 through 2007 had been growing since they came to light last Friday. Daschle overlooked taxes on income for consulting work and personal use of a car and driver, and also deducted more in charitable contributions than he should have. To resolve it, he paid $128,203 in back taxes and $11,964 in interest last month.
Since 1993, unpaid taxes and immigration violations, usually related to household help, have sunk more than one presidential nominee with the whole world watching. But a few have survived to take office anyway.
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Nancy Killefer
Killefer, an executive with consulting giant McKinsey & Co., had been chosen by Obama to serve in two roles: as the first chief performance officer in a White House and as a deputy director at the Office of Management and Budget.
When Obama announced Killefer to much fanfare in early January, The Associated Press reported that the District of Columbia government had filed a $946.69 tax lien on her home in 2005 for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help. She resolved the tax error five months after the lien was filed. She withdrew her name from consideration weeks later.
"; Biz_nominee_trouble_090303[i++] = new Array("","Timothy Geithner","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/brill-tax-TimGeithner.vmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "Charles Dharapak", "AP", "283", "198", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); Biz_nominee_trouble_090303[i-1].body = "
Timothy Geithner
Last week, the Senate confirmed Geithner as treasury secretary, but only after days of controversy over the fact that the man who would oversee the Internal Revenue Service had only belatedly paid $34,000 in income taxes.
Geithner, the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, was confirmed by a vote of 60-34 despite his personal tax lapses. His backers noted that he has corrected his tax mistakes and paid the penalties he owed.
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Biz_nominee_trouble_090303[i-1].body = "
Zoe Baird
President Bill Clinton's first nominee for attorney general withdrew in 1993 after it was learned that the $500,000-a-year corporate lawyer employed an illegal immigrant Peruvian couple to provide nanny and chauffeur services and didn't pay the required Social Security taxes for them. A federal law enacted in the fall of 1986 made it illegal to hire undocumented workers. Her case gave birth to the term \"Nannygate.\""; Biz_nominee_trouble_090303[i++] = new Array("","Kimba Wood","","","","", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", "", ""); Biz_nominee_trouble_090303[i-1].body = "Kimba Wood
Amazingly, just two weeks after Baird's problems, Wood, a federal judge in New York who was expected to be Clinton's second choice for attorney general, withdrew her name. She admitted that her baby sitter of seven years had been in the country illegally when hired in March 1986 — before such hiring was against the law. Wood stressed she had broken no laws and had paid all required employment taxes. "; Biz_nominee_trouble_090303[i++] = new Array("","Charles Ruff","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/brill-tax-CHARLESRUFF.vsmall.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "Wilfredo Lee", "AP", "198", "139", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); Biz_nominee_trouble_090303[i-1].body = "Charles Ruff
After Baird and Wood, this Washington lawyer and former Justice Department official was removed from Clinton's \"short list\" of candidates for deputy attorney general after it was learned he failed to pay Social Security taxes for a woman who did domestic work for him one day a week over the previous eight years."; Biz_nominee_trouble_090303[i++] = new Array("","Frederico Pena","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/brill-tax-FEDERICOPENA.vmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "Paul Sancya", "AP", "283", "198", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); Biz_nominee_trouble_090303[i-1].body = "Frederico Pena
Like Brown, Pena had already been confirmed as to his post, transportation secretary in this case, when the Baird case prompted him to acknowledge he failed to pay Social Security taxes for a substitute baby sitter who looked after his two children while their regular caretaker vacationed in 1991. He promised to pay more than $100 in back taxes.Shirley S. Chater
Chater, the president of Texas Woman's University was Clinton's nominee to head the Social Security Administration when the White House disclosed on Aug. 3, 1993, that she failed to pay Social Security taxes for a part-time baby sitter from 1969 to 1975. But she had paid the back taxes before her nomination, and she was confirmed.Bobby Ray Inman
The retired Navy admiral withdrew in January 1994 as Clinton's nominee to be defense secretary. Among many reasons, he listed his failure to pay required Social Security taxes for a former part-time housekeeper until just after Clinton nominated him.Stephen Breyer
When Breyer was a nominee for the Supreme Court in mid-1994, it was disclosed that the then-chief judge of the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston had failed to pay Social Security taxes for an 81-year-old U.S. citizen who worked part time in his house for 13 years. Breyer said he did not know he was supposed to pay taxes for the woman until after Baird's case, whereupon he paid the overdue taxes. He was confirmed as a justice of the high court.Michael P.C. Carns
The retired Air Force general withdrew in March 1995 as Clinton's nominee to head the CIA as he acknowledged failing to make promised payments to a Filipino youth who had worked for the Carns family as a household helper overseas and whom Carns had legally brought into this country when he was transferred back.Linda Chavez
The conservative commentator withdrew in January 2001 as President George W. Bush's nominee to be labor secretary after it was disclosed that she gave a Guatemalan woman free room and board in her home and $1,500 during a two-year period in the early 1990s even though Chavez knew she was an illegal immigrant."; Biz_nominee_trouble_090303[i++] = new Array("","Bernard Kerik","","http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/brill-tax-BERNARDKERIK.vmedium.jpg","","", "", "", "", "", "left", "Jeff Christensen", "Reuters", "283", "198", "#000000", "", "", "", ""); Biz_nominee_trouble_090303[i-1].body = "Bernard Kerik
The former New York police commissioner withdrew in December 2004 as Bush's nominee to be homeland security secretary. Amid a rising list of problems with the nomination, Kerik said he was backing out because he discovered he had hired an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper and nanny and failed to pay required employment taxes and make related filings on the worker's behalf."; // END editorial data