Tax lawyers are feasting on Sarah Palin’s tax returns. On Friday, the Alaska Governor and Republican vice presidential nominee released her returns and personal financial disclosure report. According to the WSJ, they showed her to be the lowest earner of the four national candidates. According to tax law profs Jack Bogdanski, of Lewis & Clark, and Bryan Camp, of Texas Tech, they also show that she owes tens of thousands of dollars in additional taxes, penalties and interest.
Bogdanski writes that there’s “no serious debate . . . about the fact that at least the amounts paid for the children’s travel — $24,728.83 in 2007, according to the Washington Post — are taxable. The campaign’s tax lawyer [Washington D.C. tax lawyer Roger M. Olsen] has got at least that much of the law, and perhaps more, wrong. . . . And the fact that the state payroll office got it wrong, too, doesn’t erase the Palins’ unpaid tax liability.”