The Taxman Cometh
Poor Ted Cruz. Just as he is about to get a sympathy break from the revelations at this week’s “Stormy Trial,” out comes this reporting from The Houston Chronicle that he has a tax liability resulting from his podcast deal with iHeartMedia.
While Ted Cruz claims that all proceeds from advertising done during “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” his 3-times weekly podcasts over iHeartMedia airwaves go to Truth and Courage PAC, a SuperPAC devoted to his re-election, “… tax experts say Cruz may still need to report [this] income on his tax forms, even if he isn’t pocketing any cash.”
The tax laws, they say, require that this income (something around $630,000 in 2023) is taxed to the person who does the actual work. Since Ted Cruz serves as the podcast’s host, he is the one doing the actual work.
Outrage Alert: Ted Cruz did not report to the IRS any of this income that he generated.
From The Chronicle:
“It’s still going to be his income, because he’s the one who ‘earned it,'” said Brian Galle, a tax law professor at Georgetown University. “This isn’t like a charity that auctions off one hour of free accountant time or something … This was a payment for a series of appearances by Ted Cruz and not by anybody else.”
Oops.
As a ridiculous but sublime analogy, Galle compared the podcasts of Senator Cruz to a nun’s hospital work: “The arrangement is similar to a nun who works in a hospital and sends their pay back to the church because they have taken a vow of poverty. The nun is entitled to a salary for her services, even if she doesn’t collect it.”
I have to admit that hospital analogy cuts a little deep.
Nevertheless, if this is all true, and I’ll bet it is, this should undo all the sympathy heaped on Cruz over TFG’s deal with The National Enquirer to trash out Cruz’s father on its front page in 2016.
It says it right here in the Republican Handbook For 21st Century Campaigning:
“Rule 117. Sleaze cancels sleaze.”