Tax professors agree: Sarah Palin's Tax returns are wrong

From TaxProf Blog (oh, the rarefied reaches of the web I explore to feed my Palin-habit!):

Jack Bogdanski (Lewis & Clark) & Bryan Camp (Texas Tech) have independently reviewed the tax issues raised by the release of Gov. Palin's 2006 and 2007 tax returns and financial disclosure form, as well as the remarkable opinion letter issued from Washington D.C. tax lawyer Roger M. Olsen. Jack and Bryan conclude that there are serious errors in Gov. Palin's returns as filed and that she and her husband owe tens of thousands of dollars in additional taxes.

But then again, it's not patriotic for wealthier Americans to pay higher taxes is it? Of course not. Silly me.

As Votemaster explains very well on Electoral Vote:

When Sarah Palin accepted John McCain's offer to be his running mate, she probably didn't fully realize what being in the national spotlight meant. For example, your tax returns get to be analyzed in public (for free) by miscellaneous tax experts. Gov. Palin actually lives in Wasilla, a suburb of Anchorage, but the state capital is in Juneau, 500 miles away as the crow flies (assuming they have crows in Alaska). On the many nights she stayed at home, she claimed to have been away from the capital on business and was reimbursed $17,000 by the state for this "travel." Being paid a per diem for staying in your own home is ethically dicey but probably legal since "away on business" is probably defined as "not near your office." However, Palin was also paid $25,000 to reimburse her husband and children for being away from "home" (Juneau) which she did not list as income. A D.C. tax lawyer and two law school professors specializing in tax law have concluded that if the State of Alaska wants to pay the governor to take her family on "business trips" that is its good right, but the money received is taxable income under the internal revenue code and the Palins should have declared it and paid tax on it, which they did not.