Tax scofflaws and political $$

As Vice Chairman of the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation and a member of the Budget subcommittee with jurisdiction over our tax agencies, I am well aware of a new law passed (which I did not support) which makes public the top 250 delinquent taxpayers in California.  (See: http://www.ftb.ca.gov/individuals/txdlnqnt.html.)

I did a quick analysis of the 25 top delinquent taxpayers owing California personal income taxes.  The tax debts range from $10.5 million to just under $1.5 million and includes such celebrities as the comedian Sinbad, O.J. Simpson, and Dionne Warwick. 

Of these, eight made political contributions at the federal level since 1990.  The contributions totaled $159,550 for Democrats and $7,200 for Republicans.  (See: http://www.opensecrets.org.)

The lesson here appears to be that tax cheats are more generous with the Democratic Party.  Given the difference between the parties on tax rates, is there some irony here?

Chuck DeVore
State Assemblyman, 70th District

Comments

[redperegrine]

Man, you must have a lot of time on your hands.

[Chuck DeVore]

Nah, Red, took me all of 15 minutes to look at the top 25. Now, if I wanted to do all 250, that would have taken a few hours. I read the AP story on rtumble.com on the tax scofflaw bill that went through my committee and took note of it. Wanting to check a correlation between the scofflaws and politics was a natural for me. I can't do all meetings and phone calls all the time.

All the best,

Chuck DeVore
State Assemblyman, 70th District

[Meddlesome Nobody]

Hon. Assemblyman DeVore ~

What we need is a public challenge asking those politicians who accepted contributions from tax cheats to turn those contributions over to the ftb.

Those who refuse should receive public shaming equivalent to that of the scofflaws themselves.

Your thoughts?