Timothy Geithner, US president-elect Barack Obama’s pick to head the Treasury Department and try to fix the economy, will likely face tough questioning at his confirmation hearing after public revelations he failed to pay US$34,000 in taxes several years ago.
Senate Democrats are pressing to schedule a quick confirmation hearing for Geithner tomorrow, hoping to tee up swift approval of his nomination on Inauguration Day next Tuesday. But newly released information about the tax goofs by Geithner, regarded as a brilliant financial markets specialist well-positioned to deal with the nation’s considerable economic problems, could complicate the process.
Republicans have yet to sign off on expediting the hearing, although senior Democrats expressed confidence that the disclosures would do little to slow Geithner’s path to confirmation.
At least one Republican, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, said he had “no problem” with Geithner.
Geithner failed to pay self-employment taxes for money he earned from 2001 to 2004 while working for the IMF, according to materials released by the committee on Tuesday.
He paid some of the taxes in 2006, after an IRS audit discovered the discrepancy for taxes paid in 2003 and 2004. But it was not until much later — days before Obama tapped him to head Treasury late last year — that Geithner paid back most of the taxes, incurred in 2001 and 2002.
He did so after Obama’s transition team found that Geithner had made the same tax mistake his first two years at the IMF as the one the IRS found he made during his last two years there.
The panel’s report also said that Geithner briefly employed a housekeeper in 2005 whose legal immigrant work status had lapsed.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
The cosponsors of a new US sanctions package targeting Russia on Thursday briefed European allies and Ukraine on the legislation and said the legislation would also have a deterrent effect on China and curb its ambitions regarding Taiwan. The bill backed by US senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal calls for a 500 percent tariff on goods imported from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other exports — targeting nations such as China and India, which account for about 70 percent of Russia’s energy trade, the bankroll of much of its war effort. Graham and Blumenthal told The Associated Press
INTEL: China’s ships are mapping strategic ocean floors, including near Guam, which could aid undersea cable targeting and have military applications, a report said China’s oceanographic survey and research ships are collecting data in the Indo-Pacific region — possibly to aid submarine navigation, detect or map undersea cables, and lay naval mines — activities that could have military applications in a conflict with Taiwan or the US, a New York Times report said. The article, titled “China Surveys Seabeds Where Naval Rivals May One Day Clash,” was written by Chris Buckley and published on Thursday. Starboard Maritime Intelligence data revealed that Chinese research ships last year repeatedly scanned the ocean floor east of Taiwan’s maritime border, and about 400km east and west of Guam; “waters that
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