This month, a long overdue ruling was made by the Wisconsin State Tax Commission. Former state Sen. Gary George, D-Milwaukee, was finally required to pay over $91,000 in back taxes and interest. Corruption of our public officials results in boundless damage to their constituents, and George's case is no exception. Similarly, there are tremendously detrimental side effects of the Department of Revenue allowing politics to delay justice.
In 1989, George neglected to pay the proper amount of income taxes. He continued this nasty habit through 1993. The Department of Revenue took notice and began an investigation in May of that year, which continued for five years until April 1998. Records from the Department of Revenue indicate that it was preparing to assess George for the taxes in 1999. However, the process was never completed, and officials have no explanation for the delay.
Six years later, in early 2005, the Department of Revenue finally got around to assessing George for his 1989-1993 back taxes. He challenged the assessment in April of 2008. A decision was not made by the appeals commission until this month. When the final ruling was put forth on Sept. 23, it was in favor of the department, stating there is no statute of limitations in cases of tax fraud.
The commission arrived at the correct decision, and the former senator will be required to pay $91,327, the majority of which is interest. No pity should be felt for the utterly guilty former public servant. Yet the commission could easily have found the case in favor of George. The statute of limitations, while proven illogical in this particular case, exists for a reason. The entire issue should have been resolved years ago.
Dishonest politicians should not be allowed to continue in the realm of public service. Allowing the behavior to continue or go unpunished leads to poor morale and low expectations from constituents, who should forever and always be able to demand impeccable behavior from their representatives. Lack of suitable punishment for corruption also promotes a misconception to the perpetrators, their peers and future candidates that dishonest behavior is tolerated.
It is unacceptable that in 2002, after the fraud had already been discovered, George was able to run for governor in the democratic primary. Ironically, George was clearly no stranger to skirting the rules, and wasn't even allowed on the ballot after it was found that over 200 signatures were falsified on papers designed to secure his nomination. He was later recalled from his office as senator and indicted on accepting kickback in 2003, charges for which he served prison time. He should never have had the opportunity to repeatedly prove his lack of morals. He should already have been publicly convicted of evading taxes.
In fact, George should arguably have already been recalled. Tax evasion is certainly a suitable motivation to remove an official from office. Making an example of legislators that disrespect the very law they write would prevent others from following down that path. Allowing politicians being investigated for crimes to run for office only enables corrupt politicians.
There are several different ways to speculate why the department remained inactive, allowing George's tax problems to go unresolved. George was running for re-election in 2002. Completing the assessment process for George may have been delayed because the department did not want to seem like it was interfering with the 2002 election. If that was the case, there may have been cause to expedite the process, but certainly not delay it.
We should not be hearing in 2011 that a decision has finally been made. This leads to another lingering question as to why the department was allowed to remain as completely inactive as it was. Regardless of the reasoning, it should never have been allowed to do so.
This particular tax evasion example is specific to Wisconsin, but it is a national issue. Both Democratic South Carolina state Rep. Harold Mitchell and former Republican New York state senator Vincent Leibell were charged with tax evasion. Goverments should take a stronger stance against tax-evading politicians to deter similar future offenses.
One would hope that public officials would be the first to perform their duty of paying taxes. If this is not the case, revenue departments cannot be allowed to take political issues into consideration when deciding when to bring charges against tax-evaders. Now that the question has finally been settled, and George will indeed be required to pay his back taxes, the next step is to formulate a plan to forever disallow such inappropriate delays in departmental procedure.
Heather Heggemeir is a sophomore with an undeclared major. Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
