Blogging Tory Raphael Alexander knows a scam when he sees one (emphasis in original):
News Flash: You Can't Pay Yourself Rent
Not that Wal*Mart didn't try, bless their little hearts:
Madison - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has avoided millions of dollars in state taxes by paying rent on 87 Wisconsin properties in a way that the state Department of Revenue calls an "abuse and distortion of income."
As a result, state tax auditors say, Wal-Mart owes more than $17.7 million in back corporate income taxes, interest and penalties for 1998, 1999 and 2000. More could be due for later years.
[...]Wal-Mart says it has not done anything wrong but is merely taking advantage of an overlap of state and federal tax laws: To reduce its taxes and costs, it sets up one subsidiary to run its stores and another subsidiary to own its real estate. The operating subsidiary pays rent to the real estate subsidiary and takes a tax deduction for the rent, even though that money eventually ends up in the corporation's own pocket.
Yeah, that's pretty sleazy, all right, Raphael. Mind you, change a couple of the names and ... voila!
The trick Mr. Harper’s Cons have apparently used was, after they spent the full allowable campaign limit $18,300,000.00 they discovered some local candidates had not used up their spending limits. The central party apparently “gave” the local candidates some $1,200,000.00 in total to “use up” the remaining spending limits.
The clever party apparatus puppies in Con-land then had the local candidates “give” back the money on the very same day. The central party operators then spent the “new” local candidate “donations” on targeted regional election campaign advertising.
I'm guessing the analogy will be totally lost on Raphael. Their brains just don't work that way.
3 comments:
I can just smell the "principled conservatism" from here. Smells like a locker room in which Stephen Taylor is high-fiving John Baird and Ezra Levant.
...substitute the names of any of the other corn-fed frat-boys running the CPC, it doesn't matter. The stench would be the same.
I have to admit, this gave me quite the chuckle. I appreciate the nod nonetheless, and while my brain probably doesn't work that way, I find it fascinating the way yours does. For instance, you took a non-partisan story, and spun it into Problogger leftist gold. That, my friend, is some damn fine moose pasture you're selling there.
I'm not going to pretend it was a perfect analogy, Raphael. But it would seem that the comparative outrage should be proportional to the comparative similarity, don't you think?
What I've found in my travels is that neo-cons will fume and sputter over a given situation, when an almost identical situation doesn't bother them in the slightest.
Isn't it funny how that works?
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