Editorial: Lawmaker’s actions tax federal and state coffers
In voting unanimously to recommend the removal of Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, from the House Tax Committee, the special House ethics panel showed that it gets it. In refusing to depart voluntarily, Hart showed that he does not.
The panel offered Hart a chance to resign from the committee and be done with the matter. He declined and refused to respond to further questions. Then his attorney took over, taking a defiant stance.
Hart says he’s being persecuted by the Internal Revenue Service, but he is battling the state, too. The ethics panel says that’s his business, but that he should not have used his position in government to invoke a constitutional privilege to gain delays from criminal or civil sanctions. On an earlier party-line vote, the panel dismissed a separate conflict-of-interest claim.
Questions about his judgment were first raised in 2005, when it was reported that he owed $90,000 in back income taxes, penalties and interest and that property taxes hadn’t been paid in two years. Rather than facing up to his responsibilities, Hart, who fancies himself a constitutional expert, chose to double down by trying to prove that the amendment to the Constitution that brought about a national income tax was itself unconstitutional.
Now his obsession has yielded enormously high tax bills, and he sees nothing wrong with using his position as an elected representative to drag out this absurd melodrama.
People pay taxes in this nation. It is the law of the land. Until those laws are changed, they must continue to pay taxes in a timely fashion or face the consequences. It’s quite troubling to have an elected representative who thinks that a different set of rules ought to apply to him. It’s quite troubling that the deadlines and rules we all face are too confounding for him.
Hart owes nearly $700,000 in back federal and state taxes, penalties and interest, according to public records. Where does he think the money to pay him for public service comes from? From where are we to get money to maintain basic public services?
Voters had an inkling he was a tax scofflaw in 2005, but they still elected him. Perhaps they didn’t know that it had gotten worse, which is why nobody opposed him in this year’s primary. But the revelations have now produced a write-in candidate.
If he survives this election, legislative leadership will still have to decide whether to drop him from the House Tax Committee. They should. He is an embarrassment to the Legislature.