By Matthew Vadum —— Bio and Archives January 5, 2017
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The Rev. Al Sharpton--MSNBC's Sunday morning host--easily comes in first place when it comes to "issues" with the taxman. He and his various entities--including several dissolved by New York for failure to pay taxes--currently owe about $1.5 million in state and federal taxes, interest and penalties, according to public records. It's a staggering sum, but down substantially from the $4.5 million in outstanding tax liens tallied by the New York Times two years ago. Sharpton has repeatedly said he's worked out agreements with authorities to settle his tax debt, and a source close to him says he's been paying it down aggressively, aware of how it may affect his legacy. The reverend has repeatedly called publicly for the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes.
Both Matthews and Reid have repeatedly held forth about tax policy--including together, on the same TV segment. In 2012, for example, Matthews said that "the key element" of a political battle between John Boehner and Barack Obama was "that there be tax fairness--the people at the top, who now get a tax break of about 5 percent, should not get that anymore because they don't need it." "Right, absolutely," Reid replied. Later in the same interview, she mentioned how "it was very important to [Obama's] base that he gets those rates up on the top earners. That was what he promised." More recently, Reid said that taxation of the wealthy comes down to "a basic fairness argument."
Matthew Vadum, matthewvadum.blogspot.com, is an investigative reporter.
His new book Subversion Inc. can be bought at Amazon.com (US), Amazon.ca (Canada)
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