Christie Crime Digest-Volume IV

[rocktivity]

150. Some taxing post-Bridge(t)-Gate matters

Last edited Mon Nov 7, 2016, 06:01 PM - Edit history (2)

Watchdog.org (4/2016): Gov. Chris Christie failed to report as income or pay taxes on $380,000 in expense allowances he received from the state...By not declaring the allowances on their joint returns, Christie and his wife, Mary Pat, avoided roughly $152,000 in federal income taxes over four years.

Christie gets a $95,000 a year expense account. In the state budget, it’s described as an “allowance to the governor of funds not otherwise appropriated, for official reception on behalf of the state, operations of an official residence, and other expenses.”

The governor is not required to provide receipts, refund surpluses or provide information to the state on how the money is used. But failure to report a “non-accountable” allowance to the Internal Revenue Service is a different matter.

Other New Jersey governors paid taxes on their allowances...Contrary to IRS rules, Christie did not declare the allowances as income on federal returns for 2010, 2011, 2012 or 2013...

Watchdog.org: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie...arguing the money isn’t income because he has accounted for it...

“If it’s not public, then you’re not being accountable because it’s the public who decides whether or not you have a job,” said Bill Allison, senior fellow at Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit advocate for transparency in government. “I don’t know how they can be saying these are not public records and can’t be disclosed.”

NJ Spotlight.com: Gov. Chris Christie's taxpayer-funded legal bills...from the Gibson Dunn firm...billed almost every day as the trial began in September... It is unclear what exactly the attorneys were doing, since the bills are heavily redacted...

The bills from January 2014, when the scandal broke, through the beginning of October bring the total cost for Gibson Dunn and its subcontractor, digital forensics firm Stroz Friedberg, to $11,278,532.20....

Twenty-eight Gibson Dunn attorneys contributed to Christie's presidential campaign, including one of the attorneys who interviewed him for the internal investigation...hosted a campaign fundraiser for him...(and) continues to bill the state for legal work on the case.

Huh? Wasn't Christie's self-exonerating and now somewhat nonexistent Bridge(t)-Gate report completed by April 2014 with an interim report in December? The cost was estimated at $7 million back then -- the inflation rate isn't THAT high!

NJcom: In all his years as governor, Christie has filed for an extension in April and released his family's tax returns in October...(But) just days before the presidential election, Gov. Chris Christie has broken with precedent and has not yet released his 2015 tax returns...

In October 2015, the Christies disclosed that they earned nearly $1 million in income for 2014, much of that from First Lady Mary Pat Christie's income at...investment firm Angelo Gordon. In April 2015, (she) took an indefinite hiatus...when Christie ran for president...and has not returned...

Christie earns $175,000 a year, but is also given a $95,000 discretionary entertainment fund which is shielded from public disclosure laws and which the governor does not count as income...

A spokesman for the governor offered no explanation...saying in an email that "The Governor and Mrs. Christie will release their taxes when they are ready to do so."

Do the tax collectors agree that the discretionary entertainment fund is not income? Is their delay Christie's idea of showing solidarity for Trump? Or is the problem that his income can't be explained with a spouse who worked for only four months?

Not a good move at all, especially since Mrs. Christie is responsible for most of the bill. A review of HER finances could include a review of her Hurricane Sandy charity -- to which Jon Bon Jovi donated a million dollars after Christie signed a law he helped persuaded him to pass.



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