07/01/04: Is Ralph Nader a tax cheat?

Posted By: Dan_in_Cincinnati

In the affidavit, [Theodore] Jacobs [deceased] indicated that the reason he decided to leave Nader's employ was his growing concern about the way Nader handled his personal and professional finances. Jacobs outlined in some detail what he characterized as questionable practices regarding taxes, bookkeeping, investments and stock transactions. He wrote, "Although Mr. Nader was earning approximately $500,000 per year in personal income, he paid little or no taxes since he deducted various expenses of his operations as 'business expenses' or he made contributions to 'charitable organizations' controlled by him." Jacobs continued, "He also engaged in what I viewed to be questionable end of year tax juggling, often pre-dating or post-dating checks to get a deduction in a particular year. He would often pad travel expenses and double-bill for travel expenses when he had two engagements in a particular out-of-town city."

The former associate also charged that Nader's nonprofit enterprises were run with very little oversight by their boards: "No independent outside audits were made of any of the Nader organizations until various states required Public Citizen statements."

Jacobs also wrote in the affidavit that Nader was "inordinately harsh in his dealings with his employees and others. Although he had amassed a reserve of over $2 million in various foundations, organizations and in his personal brokerage account, he paid extremely low wages and often refused to pay employees and others for work done."

Jacobs never filed his affidavit with the FBI, but some of the allegations it contains were confirmed by two former associates of Nader's on the Congress Project, an ambitious Nader-sponsored undertaking to investigate every single member of Congress up for reelection in 1972. Attempts to verify information about other people mentioned in the affidavit were unsuccessful because they could not be found or were unwilling to comment about events that occurred 30 years ago.

http://tinyurl.com/3cqw6

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/07/01/nader_jacobs/in dex.html

{;-) Dan in Miami

PS: If Ralphie boy wants to be a presidential candidate then he should certainly be required to release his tax records. The only question would be for how many years.

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