If Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had any shame or scruples, he would have resigned already as a result of the corruption reported on by ProPublica. That’s not counting his refusal to recuse himself from cases that his coup-plotting wife has stuck her nose into. Nor the dark money she has received to promote causes he rules on.
At the very least, Thomas now has some ‘splaining to do about that ultra-luxury RV he purchased with the help of one of his rich pals. That’s the million-dollar vehicle Thomas ridiculously claims he drives to Walmarts and RV parks so he can hang with the regular folks. It now looks like he has stiffed those regular folks and the rest of the country out of serious tax dollars he should have paid on his pal’s largesse.
In October, I wrote that the $267,230 loan Thomas received from his pal Anthony Welters to buy the van was apparently forgiven after Thomas made some interest payments. But, as The New York Times pointed out in its investigation that broke the story, the IRS treats a forgiven loan as income. Meaning Thomas should have paid taxes on that $267,230 plus any missed interest payments.
It appears Thomas neither made the required reporting nor paid the required taxes and now he’s stonewalling legitimate questions about the transactions from the Senate Finance Committee.
From The New Republic:
Since the Times story broke, Wyden’s Finance Committee has sought information about the loan and, through Welters’s cooperation, has obtained a limited number of documents related to it. As the committee announced last fall, those materials showed only that Thomas had paid back some of the interest and appeared to reveal that, in 2008, Welters forgave most or all of the principal of the loan.
But Thomas did not report this on his 2008 Financial Disclosure Report, the committee said, and in response to the committee’s questions, he has not clarified whether he reported any of that money as income on tax filings.
Which brings us to the present. The senators have been pressing Thomas’s lawyer, Elliot Berke, to provide additional detail on the forgiven loan, and last month, Berke responded with a letter. But once again, the letter—which TNR viewed—offered little additional clarity. It said Thomas “made all payments” on a “regular basis until the terms of the agreement were satisfied in full” and that he’s complied with judicial disclosure requirements.
That avoids detailing what those terms were, whether the payments were merely for interest—as opposed to paying off the loan’s principal—and whether the arrangement ended up forgiving much or all of that principal. If so, it would functionally constitute a large chunk of taxable income, Wyden argued.
If Thomas has nothing to hide, wouldn’t he have simply told the senators he had paid off the loan or properly disclosed and paid taxes on the forgiven portion? If he followed the law but just wants to give the middle finger to a Senate committee, that’s almost as disturbing. The fact that he’s trying to avoid saying what happened sets off my spidey senses and probably everyone else’s.
In any event, Thomas should resign. If he won’t, let’s hope Sen. Wyden goes after him hard.
