Former Dallas Mayor and Obama administration USTR nominee Ron Kirk:
Mr. Kirk's nomination questionnaire explained that he routinely asked that his speaking honoraria be assigned to Austin College, his alma mater, to help fulfill a pledge he had made to the college for a scholarship fund. Since he asked for the honoraria to be assigned to Austin College, he did not think the honoraria were taxable income to him. His paid preparer also thought this was proper. The questionnaire indicated that Mr. Kirk had assigned speaking fees to Austin College on approximately 16 different occasions. In all, $37,750 of honoraria were not reported as income for tax years 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Mayor Kirk followed a consistent pattern of assigning the honoraria to Austin College without reporting the honoraria as income or deducting them as charitable donations. In 2005, he differed from his general pattern by deducting 4 honoraria totaling $7,500 as charitable donations that he had not included in income. Mayor Kirk did not work through an agent, and the arrangements to have the honoraria paid to Austin College appear to have been informal.
Findings
Mayor Kirk has determined that the honoraria received from his various speaking engagements that were assigned to the Austin College scholarship fund should have been reported as income and then deducted as charitable donations. The estimated income tax effect of these adjustments, including taking into account the honoraria already deducted as charitable donations, is approximately $5800.
Like the Secretary of the Treasury, I don't know anything about the tax code and am forced to use TurboTax every spring to the best of my ability. Still, it seems to me that someone of Kirk's stature ought to understand that when people give you money -- even if you give that money to someone else -- you still have to pay taxes.
More than that, one wonders what Kirk's tax bill would be under the new Obama budget that eliminates charitable deductions for those in the top brackets? Would Kirk have even given the money if he knew he couldn't deduct it? Oh right, he didn't pay tax on it anyway.
