President Obama's appointees aren't the only public figures facing uncomfortable questions about their income taxes. Some of Alaska's most powerful elected officials have had their own issues. Alaska U.S. Sen. Mark Begich gets credit for acknowledging that he has had to pay back taxes. As far as we know, he has corrected his returns and paid everything he owed. We still don't know why it took a city audit for him to realize that his use of a city-owned car constituted a taxable benefit, since it has long been understood in the private sector that any personal use of an employer-provided car is taxable.
The same issue has arisen with Gov. Sarah Palin, who drives a state-owned car.
Her spokeswoman referred questions about the car to administration Commissioner Annette Kreitzer. In an e-mail to the Daily News Wednesday, Kreitzer said: "Any employees using State vehicles are either covered under the IRS commuter rule or are being taxed on the percentage of personal use of the vehicle. Governor Palin and all others using state vehicles are complying with these rules."
We still don't know how Gov. Palin defines "personal use" and how much taxable benefit she derives from her state car.
Recently, after months of questions, Gov. Palin has indicated she will pay income taxes on the state "travel" reimbursements she collects while staying at her home in Wasilla. She declines to say more than that. We still don't know how much back tax she accrued on this point, and what penalties and interest were incurred.
The Daily News asked her office last week for updates on other tax questions but has yet to receive an answer.
Alaskans don't know if she owes or has paid taxes on the clothes and grooming services she received during her vice-presidential campaign.
Gov. Palin hasn't said whether she owes or has paid taxes on the thousands of dollars the state has spent flying her children to events. Her spokeswoman again referred questions to commissioner Kreitzer, who said the children's trips were official business, so the state does not treat them as taxable benefits. That interpretation runs contrary to several tax experts who were quoted in national media stories during Palin's vice-presidential campaign.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski has stayed out of the crosshairs on personal tax questions by staying quiet. She has refused to say whether she has had to amend any past returns for underpaying taxes. Her silence is keeping her out of the headlines, but we still think she needs to be publicly accountable on this question. We think the same is true of U.S. Rep. Don Young as well. Public officials like Sens. Begich and Murkowksi, Rep. Young and Gov. Palin should undergo a degree of scrutiny most Alaskans wouldn't relish. There is no question that tax laws are complex. Anybody can make a mistake and owe back taxes without being guilty of deliberate misconduct.
But these officials help determine the taxes we pay, so we are not asking too much to expect them to be promptly and fully accountable to the public about their tax situations. The best way to do that is for all high office holders to routinely release their recent tax returns, as Gov. Palin did during her national campaign.
The point is not to play gotcha with elected officials over their tax situations. The point is to ensure that the officials who help make tax laws follow them scrupulously, just as ordinary citizens must.
BOTTOM LINE: Still plenty of things Alaskans should know about the tax situations of their most powerful officials.
Gas prices
No collusion but no relief
You can describe Alaska's gasoline market with that old line about outgunned football teams: We're small but we're slow.
The attorney general's report on gasoline prices found no evidence of collusion between the two refiners -- Tesoro and Flint Hills -- that provide most of the gas sold to Alaska motorists.
What it did find was a market that isn't lively enough to strike the kind of balance enjoyed in Lower 48 markets. That was never so obvious as in 2008, when Alaska prices rode to the heights with the rest of nation's as oil prices passed $140 a barrel, but were much slower in coming down when oil prices crashed.
The cause
It's not because retailers are making much more than their Lower 48 counterparts. It's because refiners' margins are much higher here. Alaska refiners are charging more at the wholesale level because they can.
Bills in both the Senate and House would deal with that. They would make Alaska wholesale gasoline prices (and some other fuels) illegal if more than 10 percent greater than the Washington state average -- unless refiners could show that their prices were due to reasonable costs "in connection with the refiner's sale of the energy resource."
As we see from the attorney general's report, we have a choice: Shrug and pay the price, or treat motor fuels as a public necessity and find a way to replace the effects of vigorous competition with a government-regulated profit.
We don't like telling a business it has to limit its profits. But Alaska's gasoline market is too constrained in the refiners' favor and consumers are paying the price and seem likely to pay it for a long time to come.
Legislation may be a way to address the high price of fuel in Alaska, but we are wary of a simplistic solution.
BOTTOM LINE: Refiners should either show why they need to charge more, or stay within shouting distance of Washington prices.