Brown revisits Whitman tax issue

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Reviving an old attack in his continuing effort to get Republican rival Meg Whitman to release her tax returns, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown accused her Monday of failing to pay unemployment taxes for household staff when she lived in Massachusetts in the 1990s.

The same charge was leveled by the California Democratic Party in March, using the same piece of evidence: a 1999 judgment filed against Whitman in Boston Municipal Court for $1,648.58.

A case worker with the Boston court said Monday that the judgment was “satisfied in full” Oct. 22, 1999, more than two months after it was filed.

Whitman’s campaign said the candidate owed only $304 and called Brown’s accusation misleading, saying Massachusetts mistakenly charged Whitman for taxes when she was no longer a resident or employer in the state.

The campaign provided a letter that Whitman’s accountant sent to the Massachusetts Department of Employment and Training saying that Whitman had moved to California by June 30, 1998.

In a subsequent letter to Whitman’s husband, also provided by the campaign, the accountant says the couple owed unemployment taxes from the first quarter of that year and “some interest amounts from prior years,” all totaling $304.15.

The campaign attached a check that Whitman’s husband, Griffith R. Harsh IV, sent to the state for that amount.

“The Brown campaign is knowingly pushing false information that was debunked months ago,” said Whitman spokeswoman Sarah Pompei. Brown’s campaign “lacks substance and is desperately trying to change the subject through character assaults,” she said.

Brown’s attack follows Whitman’s suggestion that he has improperly commingled the resources of the attorney general’s office with his gubernatorial campaign, which Brown denies. Her campaign has called on Brown to release records related to the attorney general’s news operation, including salaries and travel expenses.

Brown’s campaign Monday renewed the call for Whitman to release her tax returns.

“Whitman has been a tax dodger once and the public has a right to understand whether she is being a tax dodger a second time,” Brown’s spokesperson, Sterling Clifford, said in a news release.

-- Michael J. Mishak in Sacramento