Aunt Toby has an interesting past: I was in the first class of females recruited into a small private all male school (the place has not been the same since – when I got there, the upper classmen thought the height of sophistication was to drop their pants when we’d walk into the dining hall). My major claim to fame for a first job was that I could type 79 words a minute (that’s after corrections) and I can still throw the carriage with the best.

The other thing is that I worked as a small business development counselor for the SBA when I was in grad school I worked with all sorts of people who had, or who wanted to have, their own businesses. I worked with a lady who wanted to come out with a line of frozen halupki (I didn’t even know what those were at the time). I worked with a local IBM engineer who decided to take early retirement and throw in his lot selling this new little box called The Apple II. I worked with lots of people – people with business and engineering degrees; people with high school diplomas and a couple with nothing more than certain technical skills.

The one thing that tied them all..every single blessed one of them..together was this: All of them, pretty early in the game asked me some form of this question.

“What papers do I have to file..who do I have to talk to..who do I have to register with..in order to start my business?”

Basic, right? Real important stuff. Even if you are going to do a basic “I’m the owner” sort of business (sole proprietorship) and you are even using your own name, with no changes in it, you have got to file a DBA form (‘Doing Business As” because even if you are using your own name, you are now ‘Fred Jones…DOING BUSINESS AS Fred Jones’). No matter how basic a business form you use, you’ve still got to be registered locally and with your state tax folks at the very least. And if you are using one of the more ‘creative’ forms of business organization, the paperwork goes on from there.

But my point was that my little clients all knew that they had to do something. They might not have known what it exactly WAS, but they knew that there was a bunch of papers they had to file and people they had to talk to.

Carly Fiorina, on the other hand, that titan of GOP politicking, that genius of the electronics business, DOES NOT.

Fiorina’s Oops

“Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, one of the world’s leading businesswomen and a possible 2010 opponent to Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, tells the public she’s the CEO of her own business and the chairwoman of her own charitable foundation."

"But a Chronicle check of public records shows that Fiorina, a former economic adviser to 2008 GOP presidential candidate John McCain, has never registered her Carly Fiorina Enterprises to conduct business in California, either with the California secretary of state or the clerk of Santa Clara County, where Fiorina lives."

"Records also show that her Fiorina Foundation has never registered with the Internal Revenue Service or the state attorney general’s charitable trust division, which tax- exempt charities are required to do. The foundation "enables corporations, social entrepreneurs and philanthropists alike to address some of the world’s most challenging issues," according to Fiorina’s Web site, carlyfiorina.com.”

Even better, we have another example of someone whose over-riding belief in personal entitlement and ‘outside the rules that the rest of us have to follow’ falls right in line with some other rather unfortunate recent examples from the GOP:

“Contacted Thursday by The Chronicle, Fiorina’s office confirmed that neither her charitable foundation nor Fiorina Enterprises has been registered with state or federal authorities. A spokeswoman said Fiorina and her staff believe the foundation is not required to file with the IRS because it accepts no outside contributions and donates only her personal wealth to worthy causes."

"Fiorina Enterprises is a nonprofit enterprise that helps Fiorina structure speaking engagements and appearances while providing the public with information about her activities, the spokeswoman said. If an oversight involving either organization is found, Fiorina would correct it, the spokeswoman said.”

Sweetheart, trust me…all of these activities are going to be viewed by the State of California and your local folks as being worthy and requisite of filing all the pertinent paperwork, especially the charitable foundation stuff. Federal and state tax regulators do not give a rat’s patoot where the money comes from – charitable foundations require some major paper filing. And if this money is in a trust as well – hooooooweee!! Can we all spell ‘penalties’?

The other thing is this. Carly Fiorina is not exactly a tyro – she’s got quite a bit of business mileage and if nothing else, should (!) recognize the fact that if she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do with this, she needs to consult with people who DO.

Not try to wiggle out and then ask for forgiveness when she gets caught.
Not try to claim ignorance.
Not try to make it up as she goes along.

This stuff is basic. The GOP has had their eye on her ever since she made appearances for John McCain (Fiorina does appear to have better credentials than Sarah Palin, but that might be a case of ‘six of one/half dozen of another’ with these two). With this sort of thing out in the papers now, it will be extremely difficult for Fiorina to make the case for her ability to represent California voters based any any sort of ‘responsibility’ basis.

Anyone who tries to skirt the rules, get away with stuff, make it up…can’t get the little stuff right and probably won’t be able to get the big stuff right either.