Reply #4: News flash: Franken paid his taxes [View All]

For entertainers, there is a crazy quilt of regulations that govern taxable events. That's why even the lowest rung comedian had better have a good agent (to handle bookings), accountant (to watch the agent), and attorney (to watch the accountant).

Franken, a resident of Minnesota, plays a gig in New York City (for example), and gets paid for it. He has to worry about his Minnesota income tax, his New York State earnings, probably a New York City entertainment tax, the folks selling his tickets were based in New Jersey, and those "convenience" fees have to be accounted for, and he had some advertising done for the gig in Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Delaware, as well as in New York and New Jersey. What money is taxable, and by whom? What expenses are deductible, and where? It's not really a question of "letting" something happen; it can take a long time before everyone figures out just what taxes are owed to which taxing authorities.

It's pretty complicated, and anyone in the entertainment business knows this. While $70,000 sounds like a lot to you and me, it's really pretty small beer considering the number of taxing agencies standing around with their hand out. The blog guy in Minnesota either doesn't know what he's talking about when he makes a big stink about this, or does know and doesn't really care because it makes Franken look bad. What's most appalling is the traction blog guy gets from media outlets that really do know better. Would that we could get the same sort of coverage for, I dunno, torture authorized as official government policy at the highest levels of our government. Or John McCain's continuing inability to figure out who's a Sunni and who's a Shiite and why it makes a difference when treating with nations in the Middle East.