During my recent sojourn in the hospital, I had some interesting conversations with a particularly cynical nurse, a refugee from New Orleans. He’d lived in various places along the Gulf Coast most of his life before quitting his CPA job with one of the (at the time) Big Eight accounting firms to become a nurse, which he found more ethically fulfilling.
Anyway, he said the vast, vast majority of folks’ incomes along the Gulf Coast are cash-under-the-table. If BP is faced with a claim for compensation from a fellow with a million-dollar-a-year shrimping operation, but he reported a $20,000 income on his tax return, what’s BP to do?
David, a lot of those jobs are OFFICIALLY under the table: the oweners of the boats are allowed to deduct for EVERYTHING, and have to report very little. You’d be surprised what those $15/# shrimp you buy in the fish market actually bring the shrimpers. It averages maybe 15% of retail, and that’s for the best grade, and there are a lot of inferior grades that the captains probably only get 50 cents a pound for.
Over the years, I’ve watched the Dungeness crabbing prices, and the salmon prices out of Oregon fishing ports. There’s a pattern there. The only way those boats can stay on the water at all is either be owned by a factory, or scrape by.
Hopefully, BP will pay real expenses, such as boat repairs, nets, etc that these fishermen face, and not stoop to writing them a check on their reportable income.
Obama will make sure BP is taken to the cleaners. If BP can afford to pay his campaign more than McCain’s campaign, obviously Obama thinks BP can afford the payoff of the Gulf Coast citizenry, plus a little bit extra graft for the gvt.