The New York Times is reporting today that Charles Rangel has earned more than $75,000 in rental income from a villa he has owned in the Dominican Republic since 1988, but never reported it on his federal or state tax returns. Rangel’s lawyer claimed that the Congressman did not realize he had to declare the money as income, which is an odd statement to make about the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee which is responsible for writing the tax code.

Records from the development, now called the Punta Cana Resort and Club, indicated that Mr. Rangel’s rental profits varied from year to year, from $2,700 in 2004 to $7,600 in 1994.

A lawyer for Mr. Rangel, Lanny Davis, said on Thursday that the congressman would most likely file amendments to his tax returns for the years in question.

Mr. Davis said the congressman did not realize he had to declare the money as income, and was unaware of the semiannual payments from the resort because his wife, Alma, handled the family finances and conferred with their accountant, John Viardi, on tax matters.

If Mr. Davis has simply said Congressman Rangel was unaware of the semiannual payments because his wife handled the family finances, I could have understood to a certain extent. In comparison to Mr. Rangel’s salary as a Congressman, the annual payments are relatively small and could easily be overlooked by the Congressman himself, being that he did not receive them directly.

To proclaim that Rangel was unaware he had to declare the money as income however would indicate he was fully aware of the payments. It also indicates that either Mr. Rangel is either utterly incompetent for not understanding the tax code he helps write, or he is merely another corrupt Congressman who wants to raise taxes on the rich while making every attempt to avoid paying taxes themselves.

Incidentally, in case you were playing “name that party“, the New York Times did mention Charles Rangel was a Democrat, however it took them 15 paragraphs to do so.

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Congress, Dumb Dems, Features, New York Times, Politics, Taxes