Florida Democratic Party faces IRS lien; $900,000 shortage

[DoYouEverWonder]

Jun 21, 2005

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Broke and without enough money in the bank to pay its bills after the end of the month, the Florida Democratic Party has now been slapped with a lien by the Internal Revenue Service for failing to pay payroll and Social Security taxes in 2003.

The state party's budget and finance committee voted Tuesday to ask for a new audit to account for more than $900,000 it believes somehow disappeared from the books during the 2003-2004 calendar years when the party was led by Scott Maddox, who is now seeking its nomination for governor.

Maddox and successor Karen Thurman, who became the party's new chairwoman just last month, did not immediately return phone messages asking for comment on the findings.

"We're going to be on top of this a lot more than we were previously, not only in Scott's term of office, but Bob Poe's term in office," state party vice-chair Diane Glasser of Fort Lauderdale said Tuesday. "We weren't getting all the information we should have been getting." Maddox replaced Poe.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FL_DEMOCRATIC_PARTY_FINANCES_FLOL-?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=state.shtml&CTIME=2005-06-21-17-15-36


Unbelievable, what is wrong with these people?

[jsamuel]

1. They have been torn apart by Jeb's laws for 5 years

everything he has passed has hurt the democratic party in florida

[Straight Shooter]

2. Even if that's true, they need to be fiscally responsible.

This is not good. Democratic party leaders and administrative personnel must be above reproach in matters of ethics and finances.

Fodder for the Repubs.

[jsamuel]

5. obviously

i was just trying to explain the climate in florida, that's all, not making excuses

[CarefullyLiberal]

3. Question

I ain't no Jeb Bush supporter, he's a moron...but what does Jeb Bush have to do with the Florida Democratic Party not paying payroll and SS taxes in 1993?

Those people up in Tallahassee should be fired, today.

I swear this damn State is full of morons.

Sheesh

-Fergus

[jsamuel]

4. He has made them poor and sad, no one is giving any donations

why don't you go down to florida and say that to FSU and UF professors and students. Or the football players... See what happens...

[Kagemusha]

8. 2003. Not 1993.

FYI.

[dave29]

6. In other news, US Debt in the Trillions and rising by the second

n/t

[jsamuel]

7. Also in other news, Repubs loose 225 Million in High Risk investment in OH

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. I'm sure the IRS

will get right on that one. Not.

[KatyaR]

10. Florida's not the only one in trouble . . .

Oklahoma's state headquarters has let go all its paid employees and is now relying totally on volunteer staff. They sent out an e-mail the other day asking for donations of office supplies, including TOLIET PAPER! Of course, it made the newspaper, so of course now the state party is a bigger joke than it was before.

[losdiablosgato]

11. How do we expect to be a 50 state party if this is happening?

We can't. Things have to change.

[Moderator]

12. kick

[Freddie Stubbs]

13. IRS freezes state Democrats' assets (Florida state party)

Party has been cited for unpaid payroll taxes
By Bill Cotterell
DEMOCRAT POLITICAL EDITOR

In a major embarrassment for Scott Maddox in his race for governor, the federal government has frozen the Florida Democratic Party's bank account for non-payment of payroll taxes and wants $202,000 in payments, interest and penalties.

Party Chairman Karen Thurman, who last month succeeded Maddox as head of the broke and beleaguered party, said Tuesday she will meet with Internal Revenue Service officials today to work out a payment schedule. Asked how an estimated $98,000 in IRS-frozen assets can cover a deficit in payroll taxes more than twice that size, Thurman smiled ruefully, shook her head and said, "That's being worked on."

Democratic National Committeeman Jon Ausman, a Maddox supporter who serves on the state party's budget and finance committee, said more than $900,000 is unaccounted for in party coffers. Ausman got the committee to call for a new audit of contributions and expenditures for 2003 and last year, the period Maddox ran the party.

In an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat, Thurman politely turned aside questions about what the IRS headaches say about Maddox's management, but she said she hopes a new audit by the party's outside CPAs will give her an accurate "paper trail" and a road map of what needs to be done.

more: http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/11952103.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

[MGKrebs]

14. $900,000 is missing???

That should not be hard to track down.
Who was authorized to spend it.
Who spent it.
What did they spend it on.

[AlGore-08.com]

15. That's assuming it was stolen, which it might not be

It might be plain vanilla mismanagement instead.

[MGKrebs]

16. Could be. Just forgot to turn in the receipts.

Happens to me all the time. Heck, I misplaced 3.5 million once. Didn't find it until we got a new sofa. No, the money wasn't in the sofa, but the receipt for the safety deposit box that contained the bearer bonds that I bought with the money was! I hate it when that happens!







OK, I'm kidding. I would have a heart attack if I got within 200 feet of a million dollars. I have the anti-wealth gene.

[AlGore-08.com]

18. You laugh but when you deal with larger amounts, it's like that

I used to work for a small company's sales department, and it wasn't unheard of for one or another of the financial managers find a 10 or 20 thousand dollar discrepancy in the books and say it wasn't a priority to track down. And it could take months before they finally found out where the problem was. Now that I work for a major corporation's financial department, the same thing happens, only it's hundreds of thousands of dollars which need to be researched as soon as the crunch times are over. It sounds fishy to an outsider, but I have never seen anything illegal or even unethical in either company.

It is just exactly like a regular person trying to balance a check book, and being unable to figure out why you've got $20 less than you thought you did... and two days later stumbling across that $20 check from your Mom that could have sworn you deposited already...

[Lexingtonian]

17. I wasn't sure

whether Dean would tear down and rebuild the state party apparatus in Ohio first or that in Florida.

I guess I have my answer. Assuming the opportunity is recognized at DNC headquarters, which I am not necessarily confident of.

[Seeking Serenity]

19. I smell a rat

This is the * (mal)Administration's IRS, no?

Karl Rove can be exceeding devious and Machiavellian.

[MaineDem]

21. I thought of that

I hate it that I'm always grabbing the old tin foil hat lately.

But there's a lot of collusion involving the BFEE. I don't trust any of them at all.

[Rex]

20. 900,000 dollars? What about the 8 billion missing in Iraq?

How about the half trillion missing from the pentagon? All that American money that turned up in Iraq right after the invasion? The 300 billion spent by Congress on a fake war? Haliburton getting a 30 million dollar contract to make Gitmo a permanent base in 1999? And on and on and on...

[brentspeak]

22. Gee, the DLC really has things under control

Florida and Oklahoma, and who knows what other states.

These party bigwigs have spent more time hobnobbing on K Street at cocktail parties than they have minding the store.

[MaineDem]

23. What does the DLC have to do with this? (nt)

[brentspeak]

24. Aren't they the ones who supervise

the entire Democratic Party? And the ones who approve state Democratic heads?