Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Tax commission discounts for corporations

A bit more on the flap over Idaho Tax Commissioners giving discounts to corporations that challenge their tax bill.

In case you forgot, Royce Chigbrow, the Tax Commission chairman, ran as a Republican for state Controller in the 2006 primary against eventual victor Donna Jones. He ran for Controller after serving as a campaign treasurer for Otter and Ysursa. Per the Spokesman-Review:
Political: First run for office. Served as campaign treasurer for Secretary of State Ben Ysursa and Congressman Butch Otter, and financial adviser for former Gov. Phil Batt.
So, as so often happens, a political playa who's paid his dues takes a run at office, loses, and is awarded with a plum political post, i.e., Tax Commissioner. Check out his picture; doesn't he look like the quintessential insider GOPer?

Well, per Oregonlive.com, Chigbrow is the guy who handles the tax protests in question.

Idaho's bipartisan tax commission is made up of Republican Royce Chigbrow, an Otter appointee from 2007 who handles protests by large, out-of-state corporations addressed by Howland;
So it looks like Royce Chigbrow is the guy in the hot seat. Given his connections, it will be interesting to see how the investigations shake out.

Update: It occurs to me that Chigbrow, being the new guy, inherited the discounting practice and probably doesn't have a bunch of discounts to his credit, so he'll probably defend on that basis.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Damn good drum beat here Alan. Thanks you for bringing to light these dots to connect. I'm kicking myself. My Republican buddies in the statehouse were encouraging me to cross over to vote for this guy when he ran. That would be the poobah branch.

Anonymous said...

Verry interesting, indeed. Where's there's smoke, ......

Anonymous said...

Click my name for a record of his national repulbican donations.

Anonymous said...

Click my name for one auditor, LD Ridenour that wrote a letter to the editor denouncing him.

Anonymous said...

Click my name for a very disgruntled taxpayer blogger.

Anonymous said...

Sisyphus, good catches. You can see by his donation pattern that he was prepping for his fun for office.

Also, the disgruntled taxpayer seems to have some inside info, apparantley from dealing with the Tax Cmsn. If I have time I'm going to work through his archive and see if he's got any real facts.

Also, I think I recall more Chigbrows as campaign treasurers, more as in more campaigns rather than more Chigbrows. I'll sniff around a bit and see if they're connected to anyone else.

Anonymous said...

Well the commission is supposed to be bi-partisan so there's no surprise that hakcs will populate the Board. But that doesn't mean he avoids a conflict by investidating himself. And lo and behold they've cleared themselves of any wrongdoing. Click again.

Anonymous said...

Betsy has the report.