Stories abound across the Gulf Coast of people with legitimate claims who have been denied by Feinberg and the GCCF, but what of those who have been approved, who have received checks? Many have been given paltry sums, pennies on the dollar that didn’t come close to making up for their damages or lost earnings as a result of the BP oil spill, and for those people, now they may have a new problem:

The taxman.

He’s coming, and he’s coming only two days before the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

All of the paid claims are taxable income and since Feinberg and the GCCF didn’t withhold taxes on any of the payments, that leaves the recipients responsible. With $2.7 billion dollars paid out, that’s a lot of money, maybe too much to think about on such a large scale…so let’s start small. Feinberg, with his quick payments of $5,000 to individuals and $25,000 dollars to businesses leaves the recipients on the hook for $1,200 and $6,000 dollars respectively. Now, how many of those people who were in need, bad enough to accept this payment had the means to set aside 25% of this paltry sum?

Yeah, that’s trouble and those tax bills only go up from there, levied onto a population that can hardly afford it.

So here’s a thought, since Obama and his new Republican runnin’ buddies are so into the tax cutting business these days, why not go one more and declare these payments tax free. Get the IRS out of the equation, these people got trouble enough.

It would seem the least you can do.

Have a nice day.