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- <text id=94TT0540>
- <title>
- Mar. 28, 1994: Will They Pay?
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1994
- Mar. 28, 1994 Doomed:The Regal Tiger and Extinction
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WHITEWATER, Page 29
- Will They Pay?
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> No question about Whitewater hit such a raw nerve at the White
- House as whether the Clintons might have underpaid their federal
- income taxes. Asked about it by TIME last month, presidential
- adviser Bruce Lindsey angrily brandished folders of documents
- (which he refused to show) that he insisted proved all the deductions
- they took related to Whitewater were legitimate.
- </p>
- <p> But now, following a hint first dropped by Hillary Rodham Clinton
- in an interview with TIME, White House sources are beginning
- to acknowledge that, well, er, maybe there were some errors.
- Mrs. Clinton told columnist Mary McGrory that she and her husband
- may have taken at least one deduction that had already been
- claimed by a corporation, presumably Whitewater. The First Source,
- Bill Clinton, followed up by telling reporters that any underpayments
- "certainly were not intentional." Said he: "I don't think we
- owe any extra taxes, but I'm not sure yet. If we do owe, we'll
- make it good" by repaying the Treasury.
- </p>
- <p> How much may be at stake? Robert Stone, a tax expert consulted
- by , has estimated the Clintons might have underpaid their income
- taxes by $11,000 in 1978-79-80 because they took deductions
- for interest on Whitewater-related loans to which they were
- not entitled. With interest and penalties, they would have to
- pay about $30,000 now to clear the debt. According to estimates
- prepared for by the accounting firm Grant Thornton, the First
- Couple's debt might come to $53,632 in an absolute worst case
- -- $13,744 in taxes, the rest in interest.
- </p>
- <p> Accountants working for David Kendall, the Clintons' personal
- lawyer, may well conclude that the Clintons lost less on Whitewater
- than the $68,900 calculated in a 1992 report issued by Denver
- attorney James Lyons at the Clintons' request. Why did the Clintons
- embrace that figure if it was wrong? "I didn't have the records
- of the company," the First Lady told McGrory. But Susan McDougal,
- a partner in Whitewater, says she turned over all corporate
- documents to the Clintons. So how come Hillary Clinton could
- not find them? Stay tuned.
- </p>
-
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
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