- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
For years, conservative billionaires have treated Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas to opulent vacations and trips on their private jets. If these were anything other than disinterested gifts, then they’re taxable — and Thomas owes the IRS a huge bill.
When Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas flouted longstanding ethics laws by refusing to disclose billionaire gifts, he avoided public outrage for years. Based on new revelations about the potential motivations behind those gifts, he also may have avoided laws requiring Americans to pay taxes on such donations, legal experts say.
Recent reporting from ProPublica revealed that Thomas was showered with luxury gifts from wealthy benefactors, including vacations, private flights, school tuition, and even a loan for a high-end RV. Though Thomas has insisted the gifts were just the innocent generosity of friends, many came after he threatened to resign over the justices’ low salaries — and one of Thomas’s vacation companions said the money was given to supplement the justice’s “limited salary.”
According to experts, if these benefits were given to Thomas as a way to buttress his regular pay and keep him on the court, they could be considered a taxable transaction rather than a gift. By refusing to publicly disclose such transactions, Thomas made it impossible for watchdog groups to alert tax-enforcement officials about the potential issue in real time.
You must log in or register to comment.
“By refusing to publicly disclose such transactions, Thomas made it impossible for watchdog groups to alert tax-enforcement officials about the potential issue in real time.”
How does a "public servant" get to just choose to not release financial transactions?
Mind-boggling
How does a “public servant” get to just choose to not release financial transactions?
By having a lifetime appointment that no one will ever take away from you.
I’m sure there’s one way to remove a life time appointment 👀
Yes, it’s the impeachment process. Same as for presidents.
I’d be careful with things like this.
If not anything else, it makes you not much better than the republicans calling for the death of “election riggers” and the lot.
Be better.
Hercules did not throw away the Nemean Lion, and we should not either. We need this anger. It is the energy source of a movement for something better. There will always be stray calls of violence and badly pointed half-jokes. But never call for someone to quell the spark that transforms the world around you. That spark always starts with something thats not right and a fiery will that seeks to change it. We are not like the Maggats chanting for death. Good is less subjective in this context than nuance would have you believe.
Impeachment is a thing.
we tried “when they go low we go high”. we got Trump.
By being handpicked by the oligarchy to implement their will.
He’s not the servant, he thinks he’s the Lord
Unfortunately, he effectively is.
The supreme court is way too insulated from reality, or consequences.
Yes there are checks, but they are effectively impossible in this century
There’s no automatic process for it comparable to the process by which workers’ wages are automatically reported to the IRS. It’s an honor system, and movement conservatives have no honor.
So I am not a legal eagle, but it sounds to me like no matter what either one of the following is true:
A) Thomas accepted bribes from conservative malefactors to remain in on the court and rule consistently with their politics, which is corrupt.
B) Thomas accepted the same as “gifts,” pretending that they came with no strings attached, and failed to report them on his taxes. Which is illegal.
Ah, you forgot the only option conservatives can entertain as true: everyone does it anyway and liberals are only caring about it now to [favorite culture war paranoid fantasy].
In Clarence Thomas’ case, it gives them a convenient excuse to call people on the left racists. Because apparently it’s racist when a black person is a Republican and you criticize them fairly.
To be fair, it’s racist when anyone is a Republican.
Potentially. The government would have to actually prove the supposed gifts were actually payment in exchange for some sort of consideration or work. Legitimate gifts are subject to exemptions and generally taxed on the gift giver’s side as well.
Each individual can give out somewhere around $17k per recipient per year tax free and then beyond that a total of currently around $12M in total gifts over that limit tax free in a lifetime.
I agree it doesn’t pass the smell test generally but nowadays you essentially need direct unequivocal proof of it being a bribe.
If only we had some kind of record showing how he ruled when cases they were “interested in” were put before the court…
It’s funny, because I remember reading this exact same conclusion just days after the first story about him broke last year. And yet nothing has happened. I guess it’s good it’s in the news again.
Any minute now something will be done to show Thomas’s actions have consequences! Any minute now…. any minute….
Damn, I got excited when I thought the article implied he was charged for tax fraud.
They made the case that he is doing tax fraud, but the government is extremely limited/ just won’t charge him because of his position.
If Clarence won’t leave then I hope the other way a Supreme Court Justice leaves their seat comes extremely soon.
CLARENCE THOMAS WEARS MAGA PAJAMAS
Isn’t he still a citizen. How is the law not applied? When is action taken, and by who. The IRS?
The founders dropped the ball when they gave us no way to recall a supreme court justice.
Granted their massive failure of imagination has ended us up with the shitshow that is congress today
They were all high on opium and/or cocaine and thought humans could be property. Maybe not the best people to build a government.
I am not allowed to accept gifts at work valued more than $50 because I am part of a tip pool.
And I don’t want to, because it would make me feel guilty. I am no one of consequence.
I am burdened with the ethics of accepting sealed Christmas cards on the job.
Even if they were disinterested, gifts in excess of a certain value are taxable. Last I checked, the threshold was $12,000. The gifts Thomas received seem likely to have exceed that threshold. If he didn’t report them on his taxes, he is committing tax fraud.
The giver is responsible for reporting gifts and paying taxes on them, so Thomas is clear on that front. Currently, the yearly exemption is $17,000 (per donor/donee pair). Beyond that the giver must report gifts, but still doesn’t owe unless they (the donor) have reached their lifetime exemption of $13 million.
Our elected officials and their appointments are all greedy, opportunistic bastards, a reflection of the people they govern. Garbage in, garbage out.
Our people would have to abandon their delusions of living materially superior lifestyles to other Americans if we wanted to have politicians and judges appointed by politicians that even entertain the notion of their offices being public service and not just another all American profit grift as they are treated today.
Our nation and increasingly the world under our capitalist’s pressure live solely by “what’s in it for MEEEEEE?”
In what fucking universe could anyone credibly think that a culture, society, or civilization dominated by the core value of
rational self-interestinsatiable greed could ever yield selfless public servants?The concept of private property, not to be confused with personal property, is dooming us all, and we’re all so indoctrinated into the zero sum mindset of “other people have to lose for me to feel like a big winnah” that I don’t see any hope without a painful collapse to remind us all of the human suffering we inflict on swaths of people, like our homeless populations, with complete apathy under this garbage culture and economy.
Clarance Thomas, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, etc are all symptoms of the greed disease that’s killing us. If they all dissappeared tomorrow, there’d be 2 greedy assholes each the next day vying to take their places and take up their grift. Our practiced core values would have to change for that to change.
They won’t change though, so carry on with the ironic outrage about this greedy opportunist doing what we’re all encouraged to do from Kindergarten through Colleges of Economics: doing what he can get away with to get his, and fuck everyone else 🇺🇸
Of course he is. He’s of the class that openly flouts the law.
Youdontsay.png
All politicians should be jailed until they can prove they’re not corrupt
We know. He’s a conservative.
deleted by creator
