Michelle Obama Accepting Fashion Freebies
Remember the hue and cry over Sarah Palin’s wardrobe? But not a peep from the press about Michelle Obama’s practice of borrowing both clothes and jewelry…
“The transactions are clearly taxable,” says Richard Rampell, a Palm Beach, Fla., accountant whose clients include several of the island’s billionaires. “The designers are indirectly paying Michelle Obama to go and display their wares. And they get a huge economic value for it, just as if they were paying a model to do this. If they are paying her in this indirect way by lending her their clothes, then she is actually performing a service for the designer, and she should have to recognize as income whatever the value is of the clothes that she got….
The items Obama has either borrowed or received free have included a $17,313 pair of Loree Rodkin diamond earrings and clothes and gowns worth $1,000 to $6,000. In some cases, Michelle Obama’s representatives have said she will donate the items to the Smithsonian.
That makes no difference, Rampell says.”
…“All Hail the Leader of the Fashionable World” was the headline on a Jan. 21 Washington Post story. In the 14th paragraph the story mentioned that the diamond earrings had been lent to Obama. The story quoted Katie McCormick Lelyveld, the first lady’s press secretary, as saying she paid for her inauguration clothes. But a subsequent Feb. 12 New York Times story quoted the designers themselves as saying they did not charge the Obamas.
Unlike Nancy Reagan, Michelle Obama has been funneling her acquisition of clothes through an intermediary, Ikram Goldberg, who has been mum on her role and on whether she receives anything of value for her services…. (newsmax)