Business Mishaps Threaten Franken Campaign: Rivals Are Pouncing on Charges of Unpaid Taxes and Workers Comp (Minneapolis Star Tribune), by Patricia Lopez & Kevin Duchschere:
Al Franken’s career as an entertainer made him famous and rich and positioned him to run for the U.S. Senate. But now, just as he appears on the verge of securing the DFL endorsement to take on Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, Franken could be tripped up by missteps in the way his show business enterprise was run. …
On Friday, Franken’s campaign manager, Andy Barr, declined to say whether Franken had paid taxes on earnings in California between 2003 and 2007. He said Franken’s accountant is working with California officials to sort things out.
The latest Republican charge that Franken’s taxes there have gone unpaid comes in the wake of earlier disclosures that Franken failed to pay workers’ compensation and disability premiums in New York and botched the dissolution of his California corporation. Since then, Franken has paid more than $25,000 in fines to New York and still owes more than $4,700 in corporate taxes and fines to California.
More press and blogosphere coverage:
- Associated Press: Franken Acountants Looking Into Extent of Tax Problem, by Patrick Condon
- Minneapolis Star Tribune: New Round of Financial Questions Dogs Franken, by Kevin Duchschere & Patricia Lopez
- Taxable Talk: Is Al Franken the Next Celebrity Tax Scofflaw?, by Russ Fox
23 responses to “Tax Problems Threaten Al Franken’s Senate Candidacy”
If Al was anything but a liberal Dem the headline wouldnt have been about “Business Mishaps” he’d have been characterized as the king of the tax evaders.
The pic of Frankenschmuck posted for this article speaks volumes….it shows that he looks exactly like what he is….an arrogant,condescending self-absorbed jerk who thinks of himself as somehow exempt from the drudgery of actually obeying the laws and following the rules that bind mere mortals…no doubt there will be more disclosures like this which will affirm the worst about him…enough to feed my schadenfreude for quite a while
I’m shocked. Who could imagine a good liberal cheating the unfortunate on worker’s comp, and denying the government their rightful due in collecting from the wealthy in order to do good among us?
If they want a job telling me how *I* must behave, THEY gotta follow the same rules.
To quote a great cleric: “Those chickennns are coming hooome to roooost!”
Wesley Snipes could use some company for the next four years. Just sayin’.
Seems Franken would fit in just fine in Congress.
Funny how the “raise taxes” crowd seldom seem to actually pay them….
I was kind of hoping that this site would go into the details of how much trouble he’s in if any, whether his attempts to blame this on a mistake by his accountant are credible or not, etc.
Also, it would be great if this site wouldn’t link to Wikipedia. By linking his name to his entry at WP, that ever so slightly increases that WP entry’s search engine rankings. Since many WP pages are inaccurate or misleading, you might consider giving that search engine “juice” to a more credible page.
I know a guy who grew up down the street from Franken in MN. He tells me that Franken was the biggest SOB he has ever met in his entire life.
I’m not surprised.
Franken’s career as an entertainer did not position him to run for the Senate. It positioned him to think he could run for the Senate. His innate schmuckdom will deflate his ego down the line when his Senate campaign ends in defeat. Any candidate demonstrating such ineptitude in handling business affairs and lack of compliance with tax laws is a joke.
Words cannot describe how much I hate Al Franken. But the California corporate law sounds unfair.
In Florida if you don’t file your corporate annual report you are dissolved by the state. Apparently, in California, if you don’t file, they just keep adding up annual fees at $800 a year forever. That’s not fair. They should dissolve you.
California seems a horrible place to do business.
The last time I looked Minnesota included state income tax refunds in the calculation of taxable Social Security benefits. They got that little fraud from IRS/US Treasury which has done the same thing since 1983. Who was the President and Vice-President back then? Oh, yes! Reagan and Bush! If you don’t understand the problem, see section 111(a) of the Internal Revenue Code.
And if that is not enough to fry your grits compare the instruction on Line 7 of Form 6251 with IRC section 56(b)(1)(D). How do you say “Double or Nothing”?
Cheers,
WDK
The first time he’s made anyone laugh in years!
Franken’s Tax Problems
Al Franken joins Hillary Clinton as yet another liberal-Democrat politicians who champions worker entitlements, but ain’t so big on paying for them. The latest Republican charge that Franken’s taxes there have gone unpaid comes in the wake of earlier d…
Lots of people owe taxes…
FRANKEN’S TAX MONSTER?
Comedian and Minnesota U.S. Senate Candidate has some tax problems. It appears that a corporation controlled by Mr. Franken failed…
FRANKEN’S TAX MONSTER?
Comedian and Minnesota U.S. Senate Candidate has some tax problems. It appears that a corporation controlled by Mr. Franken failed…
FRANKEN’S TAX MONSTER?
Comedian and Minnesota U.S. Senate Candidate has some tax problems. It appears that a corporation controlled by Mr. Franken failed…
FRANKEN’S TAX MONSTER?
Comedian and Minnesota U.S. Senate Candidate has some tax problems. It appears that a corporation controlled by Mr. Franken failed…
FRANKEN’S TAX MONSTER?
Comedian and Minnesota U.S. Senate Candidate has some tax problems. It appears that a corporation controlled by Mr. Franken failed…
FRANKEN’S TAX MONSTER?
Comedian and Minnesota U.S. Senate Candidate has some tax problems. It appears that a corporation controlled by Mr. Franken failed…
FRANKEN’S TAX MONSTER?
Comedian and Minnesota U.S. Senate Candidate has some tax problems. It appears that a corporation controlled by Mr. Franken failed…
FRANKEN’S TAX MONSTER?
Comedian and Minnesota U.S. Senate Candidate has some tax problems. It appears that a corporation controlled by Mr. Franken failed…
FRANKEN’S TAX MONSTER?
Comedian and Minnesota U.S. Senate Candidate has some tax problems. It appears that a corporation controlled by Mr. Franken failed…
Al Franken moved to Minnesota so he could be a US Senator, He is a member of the Democratic party, he is not just some small business owner from Pipestone.
It is a small problem, paying taxes to the state where you live instead of the state where the income came from. That said, it points up how fragile Franken’s campaign has been all along. He has built his frontrunner status completely on fundraising and celebrity. A more substantive candidate, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, has built a campaign on opposition to the Iraq war and concerns about global warming and energy sustainability. These are solid issues that affect the future of all, and less subject to the whims of group-think and the bandwagon effect.
Wow
AL Franken is almost as big a tax cheat as John McCain!
Looks like Ronnie Musgrove, the Democratic Senate nominee from Mississippi, is facing similar problems.