Wall Street Journal Recounts How an Award for Moral Courage Met an Inglorious Fate
Oct 12th, 2009 • Posted in: News Its namesake was accused of tax fraud
TAMPA, Fla.
An award for moral courage, offered annually by Hillsborough County in Florida, has been tarnished after a scandal that emerged after the namesake died, the Wall Street Journal reports in a page-one article.
According to the Journal, county commissioners last year voted to name the award after Ralph Hughes, a recently deceased anti-tax campaigner.
The naming prompted protests because Hughes was known for funding the elections of county commissioners, and, according to the Journal, the purpose of the award is to honor people with the temerity to fight the county commission.
The commission stood its ground, but then, writes the Journal’s Barry Newman, the plot thickened: “Just as nominations for this year’s Ralph Hughes Moral Courage Award were due a few weeks ago — it turned out that Mr. Hughes may have been tax-averse in a more personal way.”
“In July,” Newman writes, “the Internal Revenue Service sent his estate a bill for unpaid taxes amounting to $69.3 million. In August, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit claiming that a company Mr. Hughes controlled owed more, bringing the tab to $299.3 million. While the trustees of his estate say Mr. Hughes didn’t owe a cent and blame any omissions on an associate, the revelations left Hillsborough County with a moral dilemma.”
After it became apparent that the case would drag on, Hughes’s son asked that his father’s name be taken off the award, saying, “My dad would have called it a waste of taxpayers’ money.”
The commissioners reluctantly complied, reports the Journal.
Incidentally, the committee that vets the nominees decided that in the latest annual round, none qualified, so there will be no moral courage award in Hillsborough County this year.
Source: Wall Street Journal, Oct. 1.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Jan. 19 — Related Newsline story, July 27 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 31, 2007 — Related Newsline story, May 21, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 8, 2007.
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