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| ERR America Screws Up - Again |
| 2004-05-14 |
| From The American Thinker via Country Store. EFL. Air America, the tottering monument to liberal hubris in the talk radio industry, [great turn of phrase] may be about to change hands again, according to the Chicago Tribune. Its internal state of chaos is so great that employees, who had the cost of health insurance coverage deducted from their paychecks, [by liberals? I’m shocked] were apparently never enrolled in a health insurance plan. Around here, we call that "theft" and "fraud." This must certainly be an oversight, rather than fraud. The devotion of liberals to health care coverage for all is so well-known that it is inconceivable that this could be deliberate. Incompetence, not criminality, must be at work. /sarcasm Major hat-tip to Michael Nadler, who points out that while intent is critical to asessing criminality in a case like Air America’s failure to pay for health insurance, if Air America also neglected to pay the I.R.S. the withholding taxes it deducted from employees’ paychecks, as they did with health insurance, they would be "toast." They’re toast anyway, but what the hell.... Having lost its two most important affiliate stations, bounced paychecks, laid off staff, closed advertising sales offices, and fired its two top officers, not to mention putting out an embarrassingly tedious and sophomoric programming product, [noticed by all 3 non-leftists who listened once, but not by the tedious and sophomoric leftists themselves] the company may now return to the hands of its two original founders, Democrat donors Sheldon and Anita Drobny. Thereby proving that too much money can buy almost anything - but not smarts or common sense. Strangely enough, the left-leaning press outlets like the New York Times, which devoted enormous attention to Air America when it was a pending venture, are curiously uninterested in the troubles being experienced in the actual operation of the business. [calling Err America a "business" is a tad over the top, don’t you think?] Usually, liberal journalists take delight in business scandals. Imagine the headlines if an Enron or Halliburton pocketed employees’ health insurance deductions without actually covering them with health insurance! Oh, but the liberals mean well, you see, which is all that counts. It’s different for eeevvvviiilll corporations. And if a prosecutor and/or the IRS go after them, the liberals will blame it all on Bush. It couldn’t possibly be anything they did. The Chicago Tribune article requires registration, so I posted this guy’s essay instead. |
| Posted by:Barbara Skolaut |
| #3 Taxes withheld from employee pay, and sales taxes a retailer collects, are known in the tax business as trust fund taxes. Technically, the money belongs to the government, not to you. If you don't pay over withholding taxes to the IRS, or sales taxes to your local government, the law treats you as having stolen the money from the government. There's criminal liability, of course, but on the civil side, there's a 100% penalty assessed against the offender--that is, you get to pay the tax twice. Further, if the taxpayer is a corporation or LLC (as Air America surely is), the company officer who had the power to direct that the taxes be paid, and failed to do so, has personal liability for the tax and the penalty. Oh, and the debt is not dischargeable in bankruptcy, either. |
| Posted by: Mike 2004-05-14 7:25:05 PM |
| #2 heh heh - I can't wait to hear the excuses..how's big Ed Schultz doing with his Radio Empire™? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-05-14 7:00:47 PM |
| #1 Looks like the left hand didn't know what the other left hand was doing. The issue of fraud on deducted health premiums would really depend on where the deducted money went. |
| Posted by: Stephen 2004-05-14 6:36:05 PM |