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STAR TRIBUNE: “FRANKEN OWES $70,000 IN BACK TAXES IN 17 STATES”
By Michael B. Brodkorb | April 29, 2008
“DFL U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken, frontrunner in the race to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, owes $70,000 in back taxes in 17 states, where he earned income going back to 2003.
Franken on Tuesday told the Associated Press that he never intended to avoid paying taxes and that on the advice of his accountant, had paid taxes to the city and state where he lived.
Franken has been under fire since early March, when a Republican operative revealed that Franken had failed to pay workers’ compensation and disability premiums for employees of his New York-based corporation, Alan Franken, Inc., between 2002 and 2005.” Source: Star Tribune, April 29, 2008
Click here for the complete story.
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This post also appears on Blogs for Norm!, an online community and blog covering the 2008 U.S. Senate campaign in Minnesota. The primary goal of Blogs for Norm! is to organize bloggers who support U.S. Senator Norm Coleman.
Topics: Uncategorized | 27 Comments »
April 29th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Amazing!!
April 29th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Someone tell the City of Minneapolis to turn off the streetlights tonight. The red glow from Al Franken’s fat angry face will keep the city well illuminated this evening.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Is that toast burning I smell?
April 29th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
This is way too funny. I wonder when Angry Al is going to hit critical mass.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
About how long will $70K keep an average Enlisted Reserve (ER), or an average National Guard (NG) in Iraq?
How many days did Franken voluntarily do a USO Tours?
Keep the streetlights on in Mpls. tonight.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
I wonder how much Laurie Coleman owes the state of California?
April 29th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Actually, Franken may end up getting money back in the long run. Paying taxes on an aggregated $1m to one state most likely incurred a larger bill than the bills to 17 states for smaller amounts. Even including the fines for amending his returns he may do better in the long run. This is an accountants nightmare and a nice “story” but a non-issue in the long run. It wasn’t like he hid the $1m in income and didn’t pay taxes on it. He paid taxes as aggregated rather than disaggregated.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Obviously the amount he owes and the length of time he went without paying is shocking.
But it is his attempts over the last few weeks to conceal this that is truly amazing. This is Entenza all over again in terms of the pattern of lies. The only difference is that this involves Franken avoiding the taxes he expects every one of us to pay more of.
Does he stay in the race?
April 29th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
When the California story broke I put a comment that there were 48 other states, but since New York and California were the major entertainment states I didn’t expect anymore. Seventeen states! Oh my God!!!!
I can see why he need to be a corporation. Now that might be the problem that Exxon and the oil companies are having. They are honestly reporting their income and taking heat, but to the best of my knowledge the only possible tax hit is because people are trying to increase their tax rates.
But folks if this man can’t properly manage his own fiances how can he possibly properly manage the finances of the country?
This should clearly show he isn’t qualfied to be a United State Senator.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
April 29th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Ladybelle, good points. I still contend that Al did not do anything intentionally dishonest. My complaint is that he can’t seem to handle gov’t rules, yet he wants to go to Wash DC and increase big gov’t even more.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Dave,
Glad to hear someone can see the accounting points. Most people who hire accountants trust them and need to. He should have come clean and told the truth. Most people sign what their accountants and attorneys put in front of them and trust them to do their jobs. He should have just aid he trusted them and would look into it. If he had, it wouldn’t have been something huge but would have been something most of us could understand and accept. It’s not what is done, it’s how it’s done.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
It’s not just that Al is incompentant. He’s telling all of his socialist supporters that he’s the guy who’s going to be keeping an eye on corporate America.
He can’t even keep the records of his own crappy little tax shelter straight, but he’s going to out fox the best tax lawyers in the country.
Pffft.
I hope he doesn’t give up though, there’s plenty more damage he can do to the Democrat party!
April 29th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
*incompetent*
April 29th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Plus, let us not forget that while Al most probably did not intend to hide income (although he should be ashamed of the money he got from the kids charity), he certianly DID intentionally try and lie his way out of an embaressing situation.
It’s never the act with a Democrat, always the lie that kills them in the end.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
point taken, swiftee. point taken. It’s the snatching defeat from the jaws of victory syndrome.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
“…he certianly DID intentionally try and lie his way out of an embaressing situation.”
No, he didn’t.
Say, NotSoSwiftly – did you pony up some dough to help republiCon Ron get out of his shoddy paperwork problems?
April 29th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
That’s the stuff, Dolt #1. If Al loses the idiot wing of the DFL, it really is all over.
Al needs complete morons such as yourself more than ever now, don’t give up hope. There is so much more that Al can do to, er for, the Democrat party!
April 29th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
It just occurred to me that we have had a glaring dearth of media-driven scandals involving Republicans so far. If the MSM even thought they had something on somebody, they would break it soon just to take the heat off of Obama. At this rate the stock in microwave popcorn companies is going to skyrocket. Keep up the good work Al!
April 29th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
ladybelle,
Thanks, someone with a clue finally chimed in. I love how it just bounces entirely off people though. People like swifty and chestnut don’t give a shit about reality it seems.
I wish those responsible would have checked into this stuff before things progressed so far. Bush league.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
My understanding is that Al paid the taxes, just to the wrong states. So he has to file returns in the states concerned and file an amended return claiming those taxes paid elsewhere as deductions. Had he done that initially, he might well have paid less in taxes since deductions in New York are more valuable because tax rates are higher there.
Has any reader of this board made a business trip out of state? Did you file tax a tax return in that state for the portion of the income you earned while you were there? Did you even think to mention that issue to your tax preparer?
April 30th, 2008 at 12:29 am
I think that Citizen Franken has every right to blame his accountants for failing to protect a hapless future U.S. Senate candidate from embarassing tax problems not of his own making. I’ll bet he’s for tax simplification now! And I’m also guessing that if we look back as far as Student Franken’s secondary school days, we’ll almost certainly find that his dog should be blamed for eating his homework.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Everyone is for tax simplification in theory, but hardly anyone supports it when it comes down to actual cases. That’s because the vast majority of tax complications save, not cost money. What Al is having a problem with here is a complicated issue but if handled correctly, it would have allowed him, in all likelihood to save on his tax bill, becauase he could have avoided high New York taxes.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:41 am
Hiram writes: “…becauase he [Franken] could have avoided high New York taxes.” I’m confused. I thought that you left wingers, including Franken, were all far high taxes.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I know I am certainly very much in favor minimizing my tax bill. I take every deduction I legally can, and I urge others to do so as well.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Hiram:
Technically that would’ve been to file proper returns as the corporation in all seventeen states. Keep in mind this shows how stupid Franken is he doens’t have this discover until like April 28th. Because of that he lost his chance to get a refund on his 2004 taxes. Not to mention the earlier years.
It just shows that he isn’t qualified to be a US Senator.
As for eightputt. I got an idea he write an letter to California and see if they can get California to go after Miss Coleman. I’m going to assume that the Colemans properly file their taxes. After all he has been disclosing his finances for several more years than Franken.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
April 30th, 2008 at 9:24 am
The more I read of this story, the thought occurs to me that maybe it isn’t a question that the old accounting was wrong, rather that the new accounting is more aggressive.
Apparently, this issue was discovered as part of an overall review of Al’s financial history. I think what the accountant did was what most accountants would have done, report the income on his New York return. While this might have been technically incorrect, it’s one of those things that as far as the client is concerned is technically a wash. This wouldn’t be an issue for Al alone. It seems to me anyone who works outside their state in jobs generating income might, depending on local tax law, be liable for tax in that state.
When you or your tax preparer did you or your preparer thinkg to ask, was any of this income generated by work peroformed out of state?
September 27th, 2008 at 1:59 am
[...] usual, Michael’s all over this story. Should we expect anything [...]