See-through Palin: Empress who spent $150K but has no clothes

Reports have come out that Palin went on a Shopping Spree in September

Jeff Larson is a prominent Republican consultant whose firm has been tied to the onslaught of negative robocalls from Senator John McCain’s campaign. Mr. Larson was also the chief executive of the local host committee for the Republican National Convention. Now it appears that Mr. Larson may have been the personal shopper for Gov. Sarah Palin’s lavish shopping spree — or at least he initially picked up the tab. Federal Election Commission records show that Mr. Larson was reimbursed by the Republican National Committee in September for more than $130,000 in purchases at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, Barney’s New York, and Atelier New York, a men’s clothing store. The spending spree, first reported by Politico.com, was apparently to outfit Ms. Palin and her family. Should she decide to keep the clothing, its value would have to be taxed as income. I.R.S. rules allow for employees to deduct the cost of uniforms worn for work — as long as the clothing has no use other than one’s job. Back Story with Leslie Wayne (mp3) But if the same clothing can also be worn day-to-day, the cost cannot be deducted from income. And if paid for by someone else, as in this case, the value of the clothing must be reported as taxable income, Robert S. McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a nonpartisan tax policy research group, said on Wednesday. “If the clothes were only used for work, it would not be taxable income,” Mr. McIntyre said. “But if you can use them to go to lunch with your husband, it would.” The Republican National Committee confirmed the reimbursements to Mr. Larson, but said that the clothing bought for Ms. Palin and her family would eventually be given to charity. Mr. Larson did not return messages left for him today at his business in Minnesota. Apart from Mr. Larson, the McIntosh Company in Dallas, which appears to be a fund-raising firm run by Alison McIntosh, who has been identified in news reports as a fund raiser for the McCain campaign, was apparently reimbursed for $4,537 in purchases at Macy’s in Minneapolis, according to the commission records. It also appears that a woman by the name of Lisa Kline was reimbursed for several hundred dollars in purchases made at high-end children’s stores in Minneapolis, the Gap and Macy’s as well as a sewing supply store in New York. The full shopping list for Ms. Palin and her family, according to records of the Federal Election Commission, looks like this:

• $75,062.63 spent at Neiman Marcus on Sept. 10.

• $41,850.72 to Saks Fifth Avenue in New York on Sept. 10.

• $7,575.02 to Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis on Sept. 10.

• $5,102.71 to Bloomingdale’s in New York on Sept. 10.

• $789.72 to Barney’s New York on Sept. 10.

• Charges of $4,396.94 and $512.92 at Macy’s in Minneapolis on Sept. 10.

• $4,537.85 to Macy’s in Minneapolis on Sept. 22.

• $349.50 to Lord & Taylor in New York on Sept. 25.

• $4,902.08 to Atelier New York, a men’s clothing boutique, on Sept. 10.

• Two separate charges of $98 to Pacifier, a high-end baby store in Minneapolis, on Sept. 10 and Sept. 25.

• $98.50 to Steinlauf & Stoller, a sewing supply store, in New York on Sept. 25.

• $133 to the Gap in Minneapolis on Sept. 25.

The money for the clothing came out of the budget of the Republican National Committee’s co-ordinated campaign fund, not the McCain campaign, an an important legal distinction, said Kenneth Gross, a campaign finance expert at Skadden Arps in Washington. Had the money come from the McCain campaign, it would be a conversion of campaign funds into personal use, which is prohibited. The same rule does not apply to money from party committees.

“The R.N.C. is not made up of campaign money,’’ said Mr. Gross. “It’s not subject to the same restrictions as campaign money. The R. N. C. cleverly used the party committee’s money to avoid the liability that would have occurred if campaigns funds were used. It’s a fine line, but it separates what is legal from what is not.”

This on top of Mrs. McCain and her Convention outfit - from her über-pricey earrings to her Oscar de la Renta designer dress to her shoes to the tune of $300,000.

And these folks are talking about working class/middle class people? We could surely appreciate a law that punishes deliberate deception by sending the perpetrator(s) to Alaska for life, to wait and watch for Putin's head to pop up.