Per Diem

Now there's some hoopla over Gov. Palin not paying income taxes on per diem she received as a governor living at home and commuting into the capital.

It seems that some people went and dug up some lines of tax code that now state that per diem is to be treated as "income" rather than "tax-free living expenditures." When I worked for TIC, I received about a third of my take-home from per diem, none of which was reported as income. I wonder if now that means I have to pay taxes on the roughly $6,000 I took home of what everyone said was tax-free cash. (Everyone also includes my father, who is a CPA.)

To me, this whole article is a bunch of hoopla about nothing. Someone, perhaps maliciously, perhaps because he's trying to be as scrupulous as he can about things so that Palin has a clean record (which do we believe, folks?), "discovered" that what most people expect to be tax-free income is instead taxable income, and now Palin has to pay thousands of dollars in taxes.

The reporting, gleefully attempting to lump Palin in with the other tax-dodgers we've heard about in the news, doesn't seem to realize that, even if this is a case of tax-dodging, it's non-news. If the other tax-dodgers get a pass due to errors of judgment or not knowing the laws, so does Palin. On the other hand, if Palin is to be lambasted for this, so should the other tax-dodgers.

What to do, what to do...