Washington  - Ron Kirk, President Barack Obama's nominee for US trade representative, will have to pay nearly 10,000 dollars in back income taxes owed on speaking fees he was paid over the last four years, according to a Senate report released Monday.

Kirk, a former mayor of Dallas, becomes the fifth major Obama nominee to face tax problems. But the issue was not expected to derail Kirk's approval by the Senate to be the chief trade negotiator for the US government.

The Senate Finance Committee said in a report that Kirk had failed from 2004-07 to register 37,750 dollars in lecturing fees as taxable income, because he had arranged for the money to be donated to a scholarship fund for his former university, Austin College.

Kirk should have paid 9,975 dollars in taxes on the speaking fees before handing them over to the college. The committee said Kirk has agreed to pay the taxes and has scheduled a hearing on Kirk's nomination for next week.

"Mayor Kirk is the right person for this job, and I will work to move his nomination quickly," Max Baucus, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement.

Two of Obama's previous nominees - Thomas Daschle for health secretary and Nancy Killefer as chief performance officer - were forced to withdraw their names from consideration last month over tax problems.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was approved despite a tax issue related to his work for the International Monetary Fund, while Labour Secretary Hilda Solis was approved amid tax questions over her husband's business. (dpa)