Tuesday, July 28, 2009
COLUMBUS (AP) — The husband of U.S. Senate candidate and Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner wants a review of the state’s handling of tax information involving his law firm.
Attorney Rick Brunner has asked Inspector General Tom Charles to investigate the cancellation of his corporate charter in May for failure to file proper paperwork with the Department of Taxation in 1998 and 2001.
He wants to know how the cancellation became public so quickly, reprising a recent high-profile information disclosure case involving Ohio resident Samuel Joseph “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher.
Brunner also questions the timing and circumstances behind the state’s action. His wife’s Senate rival, Lee Fisher, is lieutenant governor in the administration that oversees the tax department.
Both Fisher and Jennifer Brunner are Democrats vying for the seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Sen. George Voinovich, a Republican.
State Tax Commissioner Richard Levin said in a July 16 interview with the Associated Press that the cancellation most likely followed a routine review conducted in April, when roughly 10,000 Ohio businesses were caught in a computer sweep seeking late 2007 tax filers.
Careful not to mention Brunner’s case specifically, Levin said he is confident the Tax Department did not target a particular business for political purposes. He said doing so is practically impossible because of the automation involved.
Rick Brunner has produced paperwork that appears to show he filed his 2007 paperwork on time. He also notes that the year 2007 was not referenced in either of two letters he received from the state.
Brunner has asked Charles to examine how the corporate information got so quickly into the hands of the press after action was taken and whether statements by public officials in response to the story broke confidentiality.
The letter cancelling Rick Brunner’s incorporation charter is a public record and is readily accessible online. However, Brunner says it should not have been sent in the first place. He has produced tax records for the press that show he also made timely filings in both 1998 and 2001.
His complete tax records are confidential, so only those letters he authorizes have been released.
Fisher campaign manager Geri Prado suggested the Brunner campaign was engaging in “bizarre conspiracy theories” while Fisher is concentrating on bringing jobs to Ohio’s ailing economy.
“These charges are completely baseless and unfortunate. It’s up to the Inspector General to determine whether to pursue this, and we will cooperate fully with his decision,” she said.
Brunner’s campaign manager, David Dettman, pledged Jennifer Brunner also would lend her full support to any inquiry.
“The request for an inspector general investigation was not made lightly,” he said.
In November, Charles found that an Ohio agency director improperly used state computers to find personal information on Samuel Joseph “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, the Toledo-area man who gained headlines after he was mentioned in the final debate of the presidential election.
Charles’ inquiry did not find any evidence, however, that the data on Wurzelbacher was accessed or released to the media to advance a particular political candidate or agenda.
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland placed the director, Helen Jones-Kelley of the Department of Job and Family Services, on a one-month unpaid leave and she later resigned.