Thursday, February 16, 2006

Unpaid Taxes

Unpaid Taxes: "Two candidates for county office share a business that didn't pay its franchise tax until The Monitor asked them why.County judge candidate J.D. Salinas and county clerk candidate Arturo Guajardo Jr. are two of four partners in Hidalgo Investments Inc., which didn't pay the tax as it was supposed to last November. The candidates say they didn't know the tax had not been paid.Guajardo, of course, put his name and picture on the county clerk website when he's just a deputy clerk. If he gets elected, I wonder if junior will steer county business to his firm, the way his father steered PSJA school district business to his store."


Sometimes, you want to support candidates, and then you learn stuff that makes you iffy. I would say do a split vote on these guys. If you vote for JD, forget Guajardo. If you vote Guajardo, forget JD. I don't think it's cool for candidates who will be working together this closely, if they win, to be in business together. Let's say JD is County Judge and Guajardo becomes County Clerk. The opportunity for them to try shenanigans is just too great to pass up. Forget the taxes, I can believe that taxes could go unpaid. They won't be the first people to miss the tax deadline. You just pay a penalty and pay your taxes. You're off the hook and the state is happy. I'm just frowning on the business parter/co-worker relationship that these guys want to pull.

Update:

I found this in yesterday's news, which gives more details about the connections between them and FNB: County Office Candidates Involved with Development Company; Pay Taxes Late. Again, paying taxes late is OK, it happens. Ironically, some of the investments of Hidalgo Investments, Inc. were tax lien properties.

I'm still going to the event tomorrow; there's free food.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Shaine,

Good for you. I'm on the maroon side of the fence, but this is the type of thing that makes my eyes roll... Still the lesser of two evils... For sure!

-PP

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