When I wrote recently that the IRS was corrupt, venal, and despicable, I didn’t realize that I was bending over backwards to be overly nice.
Every new revelation in the scandal shows that the agency is beyond salvage.
Writing for Real Clear Markets, Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute is appropriately skeptical of the IRS.
Coincidentally, Lerner’s computer crashed 10 days after Congress expressed concern about possible targeting of conservative groups. Emails between January 2009 and April 2011 were lost. Her computer is not available for examination, because it has already been recycled by the IRS. In a further coincidence, or not, a backup tape of agency emails made by the IRS was erased after 6 months. …As Georgia Republican Rep. Doug Collins said, the story sounds more and more implausible.
Diana then explains why this matters, using Obamacare as an example of why we should worry about a corrupt and politicized IRS.
Why should we care about missing emails from 2009 to 2011? As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a 2013 hearing about Benghazi, “What difference at this point does it make?” It is not just that Americans’ basic trust in the IRS is being called into question. Over the past five years the IRS has been concentrating its power, giving the agency increased opportunities to pick on people and groups it dislikes. …Sarah Hall Ingram, who was commissioner of the IRS’s Tax-Exempt and Government Entities Division from 2009 to 2012 during the Lois Lerner scandal, now heads the IRS Affordable Care Act Office. …Do Americans trust the IRS to calculate these subsidies and refunds impartially? The IRS already made a power grab in May 2012 by extending premium subsidies to the 34 states with federal exchanges.
She also points out that the IRS is carrying water for the President’s attempt to stifle opposing views.
…the IRS proposed regulations that would allow the agency to regulate the free speech of President Obama’s political opponents, while leaving the political activities of his friends untouched. …The regulations were targeted at tax-exempt organizations that file under 501(c)(4) of the IRS code… Under the new rules these groups would not be allowed to engage in voter education that mentions a candidate within two months of a general election or one month of a primary. Left untouched by the proposed regulations were unions, which file under 501(c)(5) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Stan Veuger of the American Enterprise Institute also is not persuaded by the IRS’s deceitful excuses.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the administration have consistently spouted lies and half-truths about the IRS scandal. The latest development in the controversy is that crucial emails have conveniently gone missing – is there any reason to believe that it is, as the administration claims, a mere accident? …This effort to keep conservative 501(c)(4) organizations from attempting to prevent president Obama’s reelection was, of course, hidden from the public. Ms. Lerner was careful to try and structure the IRS’ targeting in such a way that would not be appear to be a “per se political project,” in her own words, and denied in meetings with, and letters to, congressional oversight staff in 2012 that conservative groups were treated exceptionally or that the IRS’ ways of evaluating 501(c)(4)s had ever changed. The claims were false… In her response to a planted question from the audience at an American Bar Association tax conference, Ms. Lerner blamed the targeting of conservative groups on “our line people in Cincinnatti.” This has also turned out to be false. …non-Tea Party groups were never subjected to the same delays and investigations as Tea Party groups were. This once more suggest that obfuscation and dishonesty were central to the IRS’ approach to their targeting practices.
He even crunches some numbers to show that the claims from the IRS are utterly implausible.
It would be very helpful to see what communications took place between IRS officials and other Democrats. And this is where the missing emails come in. …They are gone, they now tell us, hard drives crashed and tapes were erased. Should we believe that? Of the 82 IRS employees tied to the targeting operation, 7 had their email disappear, or 8.5%. According to IRS commissioner John Koskinen, the industry standard is 3 to 5%. Under reasonable statistical assumptions, that makes the IRS scandal disappearance rate about as likely as the emails having been eaten by unicorn, with a probability far smaller than 1%. Given the IRS’ track record in this affair, that is way beyond anything that would justify giving the IRS and Lois Lerner the benefit of the doubt.
Amazingly, 12 percent of Americans believe the IRS. Here’s some polling data that Phil Kerpen shared on his twitter feed.
I’m particularly happy that younger people are more skeptical. They’re more tech-savvy and realize that the IRS’s excuses are a bunch of….well, a bunch of stuff that comes out of male cows.
And here are some good cartoons on the topic, starting with Eric Allie’s gem.
I like how he includes a representative of the 12 percent of deliberately gullible Americans.
And here’s another contribution from Allie.
And here’s Steve Kelley’s cartoon on the topic.
He’s right, needless to say. It would be better if the IRS was merely squandering money rather than seeking to subvert the democratic process.
Last but not least, here’s an evergreen cartoon about the IRS from Glenn McCoy.
Oh, and let’s not forget two other items.
The political hack who now heads the IRS is a partisan leftist.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen contributed more than $85,000 to Democratic candidates and committees…with a $5,000 donation to President Obama in 2012 and $19,000 to the Democratic National Committee from 1988 to 2008.
And the political hack who was forced out of the IRS actually wanted to target a US Senator.
…the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) targeting of conservative individuals includes a sitting United States Senator. According to emails reviewed by the Committee under its Section 6103 authority, …Lois Lerner sought to have Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) referred for IRS examination.
There are more horror stories to share, but this is enough for one day.
Suffice to say, you can understand why my fantasies involve tax reform rather than supermodels.
P.S. I can’t resist one more comment. Don’t forget that the corrupt and partisan IRS is in charge of Obamacare enforcement, but the bureaucrats want to be exempt from that government-run healthcare system. Just like politicians.
The moral of the story: Washington is even worse than you think. It’s a racket for insiders, but a burden for the rest of us.
[…] mentions the Lois Lerner/Tea Party scandal. I think the recent leak of taxpayer data is equally […]
[…] mentions the Lois Lerner/Tea Party scandal. I think the recent leak of taxpayer data is equally […]
[…] mentions the Lois Lerner/Tea Party scandal. I think the recent leak of taxpayer data is equally […]
[…] Scandals at the IRS […]
[…] Scandals at the IRS […]
[…] Scandals at the IRS […]
[…] mentions the Lois Lerner/Tea Party scandal. I think the recent leak of taxpayer data is equally […]
[…] mentions the Lois Lerner/Tea Party scandal. I think the recent leak of taxpayer data is equally […]
[…] mentions the Lois Lerner/Tea Party scandal. I think the recent leak of taxpayer data is equally […]
[…] mentions the Lois Lerner/Tea Party scandal. I think the recent leak of taxpayer data is equally […]
[…] mentions the Lois Lerner/Tea Party scandal. I think the recent leak of taxpayer data is equally […]
[…] This is very reminiscent of what happened about a dozen years ago when other IRS bureaucrats stifled Tea Party groups in order to boost President Obama’s reelection prospects. […]
[…] This is very reminiscent of what happened about a dozen years ago when other IRS bureaucrats stifled Tea Party groups in order to boost President Obama’s reelection prospects. […]
[…] IRS played partisan politics during the Obama years by targeting taxpayer organizations such “Tea Party” […]
[…] IRS played partisan politics during the Obama years by targeting taxpayer organizations such “Tea Party” […]
[…] bureaucracy repeatedly has leaked information and used its power to advance the leftist policy […]
[…] bureaucracy repeatedly has leaked information and used its power to advance the leftist policy […]
[…] bureaucracy repeatedly has leaked information and used its power to advance the leftist policy […]
[…] IRS played partisan politics during the Obama years by targeting taxpayer organizations such “Tea Party” […]
[…] IRS played partisan politics during the Obama years by targeting taxpayer organizations such “Tea Party” groups. Now […]
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[…] bad news is that Lois Lerner didn’t get punished. She’s now enjoying a fat taxpayer-financed pension. And other IRS officials successfully […]
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[…] fan of the IRS or it’s Commissioner, a partisan Democrat named John Koskinen. The agency has become politicized, interfering with America’s political process. Needless to say, I’m not shedding tears […]
I would like a pink unicorn! When I teach college business classes I always ask the students if they think corporations need to pay more in taxes (the common reply is yes, then I ask them if they know how the tax system works and the answer is usually no. After they learn the basics on taxes they tend to change their minds. The average Person on the street does not know better so step one might be to educate more people on how the system works in order to garner more support.
@Dick Richards. Corporations do not actually pay taxes. Or to be more precise, corporations do not bear the burden of the taxes they remit.If the corporation is making a profit, taxes are paid by the customers. If the corporation is failing, taxes are paid by the shareholders, whose pool of earned by undistributed income is depleted. If the corporation fails, tax arrears may be borne by the lenders and ultimately the shareholders, who get wiped out.
But corporations are a greatly convenient target for the tax-collecting highway man!
So yes, corporate profits taxes should be zero, to avoid double taxation. Corporations should however be encouraged/required to flow through their profits so a whacking 100% tax on profits not expended or disbursed after some passage of time would be appropriate.Dividends reduce the Undistributed Surplus Account and are taxed in the shareholders hands (properly at the same rate as any other income), No dividend tax credits as there is no tax paid by the corporation.
Now we just have to raise some pink unicorns in captivity to make that happen. (Although when you think about it, corporations should be lobbying for it…But then they would have to grow, or (wailing and gnashing of teeth, rending of garments) pay out dividends.
Notice that the corporations which everyone chastises for having buckets of money offshore, also do not pay dividends….. Microsoft anyone?
1. One of Clarke’s laws: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
2. With a hat-tip to Napoleon’s dictum “Never ascribe to malice that which is easily explained by incompetence”:
Grey’s Law: Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
I.e. they are so bad, you think they are doing it on purpose!
3. The Machiavellian corollary is then: Any sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence
I.e. if they are *really* smart, if looks like they are just screw-ups, when they are actually doing it on purpose.
And I am betting on #3, except that this is insufficiently advanced malice.
Data loss at individual workstations is common in any group, requiring a reliable, central, and long lived backup system. The most common cause is accidentally deleting a file. Less common is hard disk (HD) failure. Most HDs are recoverable through specialized effort even after becoming unreadable on the workstation. Organizations don’t rely on physical HD recovery; they implement long term reliable backup on tape or on central, redundant HDs. Loss is common, but the simultaneous loss of data on many computers within one related group is extremely unlikely.
Say the typical life for a user’s HD is 4 years. The chance of a failure averages about 1/4 each year, with most occurring in the last year. Say I choose 7 particular HDs. The odds that they all fail in any one year is 1/4 multiplied together 7 times, about 1 in 16,384 years.
Amazingly, hard drive failures would be common in any group. The odds of one or more of those 7 HDs failing in any year is about 87%. (The chance of no failure is (3/4)^7 = 13%.) This makes sense because an individual HD fails once every four years, and some failure in a group of 7 is going to happen much more often.
The best evidence against the IRS is that they live with this reality of common HD failures within any group. They could not function without reliable backup going back years, not merely 6 months. Their claimed backup system is ludicrous and unworkable. If it existed as claimed, then it had to be an intentional desire to lose data when needed to have plausible deniability.
I doubt that such poor backups apply to the typical IRS worker. We will find that they apply only to the management of politically sensitive groups such as Lerner’s.
The standard for criminal conviction is commission of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. The data disappeared from the 7 hard drives in independent computers that contained Lerner’s emails. I say that less than one chance in 16,000 years of this being an accident is beyond a reasonable doubt. Jail them all.
EasyOpinions.blogspot.com
Reblogged this on Aquilon's Eyrie.
Mr. Dan, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that corporate income taxes make up only 10% of federal revenue. With that being the case, and with the double taxation of business income already in place, isn’t the most logical tax rate for business income tax ZERO?
.
Such a policy would:
+ bring back into the U.S. billions of dollars currently held overseas;
+ significantly encourage business growth, which would in turn improve job growth;
+ make the value of tax loopholes = ZERO, which would in turn, decrease the involvement of corporations in lobbying and political activities.
I don’t see any downside.
Reblogged this on Gds44's Blog.
the heads of government agencies are acting as war lords… they are contemptuous of congressional oversight… and constitutional governance… they have amassed their own agency armies… and will likely act against anyone who disputes their authority… the only solution is to defund the bastards… and send them into oblivion…
the America of 2014 scares the hell out of me…….
[…] Lies, Damned Lies, and the IRS […]
Report: The Big Money in Tax Breaks Continues
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April 18, 2014 – Download PDF Version
National Priorities Project updates trillions in tax breaks, who benefits, and why it matters for you.
By Becky Sweger Data support by Mattea Kramer, Jasmine Tucker, and Asher Dvir-Djerassi
The federal tax code includes hundreds of tax breaks (called tax expenditures within the federal government) meant to encourage activities that lawmakers deem beneficial to society. From the perspective of the government, tax breaks are no different from any other kind of government spending. In both cases, the U.S. Treasury has less money, and a government activity â whether subsidies for home buying, repairs to an interstate highway, or tuition support to college students â receives funding.
Big Spending, Little Oversight â with Trillions at Stake
In 2013, the cost of tax breaks was equal to the entire U.S. discretionary budget [1]. However, the discretionary budget is subject to an annual appropriations process, where Congress debates the proposed spending. Tax breaks, on the other hand, remain on the books until lawmakers modify them. As a result, over a trillion dollars a year in lost revenue â more than 1.6 times the 2013 budget deficit â goes largely unnoticed.
Tax breaks deserve just as much oversight and public attention as the rest of the federal budget. Every dollar the government spends on a tax break is a dollar it canât spend elsewhere â whether on early-childhood education, environmental protection, or infrastructure improvements. Yet few Americans are aware of how much spending occurs through the tax code or who benefits.
Corporate Tax Breaks
The cost of corporate tax breaks has trended upward in recent decades, totaling nearly $176 billion in fiscal 2013. In other words, the overall U.S. corporate tax bill was $176 billion lower than it would have been without the special deductions, credits, and exclusions written into our tax code. To put that in perspective, thatâs about $1,328 per U.S. household. [2]
The largest corporate tax break allows multinational corporations to defer paying taxes on offshore profits, costing the government $65 billion in 2013 alone. That comes out to $494 per household. [2]
Big Tax Breaks Offer Deep Savings for the Wealthy
Tax breaks for individual taxpayers exceeded $1 trillion in fiscal 2013, but all individuals do not benefit equally. Major tax breaks that totaled more than $770 billion in tax savings in 2013 are tilted heavily in favor of the top income earners. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 17 percent of the benefits from major tax breaks go to the top 1 percent of households. [3]
In fact, the Tax Policy Center estimated that 4,000 taxpayers in the top 1 percent owed no income tax at all in 2013, thanks in large part to tax breaks that helped them reduce their tax liability down to zero. [4]
Select Top Tax Breaks for Individuals
Cost to U.S. Treasury in 2013
Share of Benefits Going to Top 5% ($209,500 income and above [5]
Share of Benefits Going to Top 1% ($462,500 income and above) [4]
Exclusion of Employer-Sponsored Health Care Employer payments for employee health insurance are tax-exempt. $191 billion 10% 2% Special Rate on Capital Gains and Dividends Money earned from selling stocks and other assets is taxed at a special low rate. $97 billion 82% 68% Exclusion of Employer-Sponsored Retirement Plans Contributions to certain retirement plans are tax-exempt. $91 billion 36% 14% Deduction of Home Mortgage Interest Interest on a home mortgage is tax-deductible. $71 billion 38% 15% Deduction of Charitable Contributions Contributions to charitable organizations are tax-deductible. $50 billion 59% 38% Source: OMB, CBO
Washington Contemplates Reform â And You Can Have a Say
In February 2014, Representative David Camp (R-MI), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, released the âTax Reform Act of 2014,â a 980-page plan to overhaul the tax code. His counterpart, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has called for reform of the âdysfunctional, rotting mess of a carcass that we call the tax code.â [6]
However, in this election year, itâs unlikely that Congress will pass comprehensive tax reform. Instead we may see less sweeping changes, perhaps enacted as part of the budget. Sixty-seven percent of Americans want a budget that closes corporate tax loopholes and limits tax breaks for the wealthy. [7] Hereâs how the current budget proposals stack up: [8]
President Obama
Rep. Paul Ryan and the House Budget Committee
House Congressional Progressive Caucus
Places limits on tax deductions for top income earners and implements Buffett Rule to collectively raise $651 billion over 10 years. Ends the âcarried interestâ loophole that benefits hedge fund managers and eliminates special tax breaks for corporations (raises $13.8 billion over 10 years). Plans to close tax loopholes to simplify the tax code but does not specify which ones. Places limits on tax deductions for top earners. Limits corporate loopholes for stock options, executive bonus pay, jets, and meals and entertainment to raise $153 billion over 10 years. Also eliminates the home mortgage-interest deduction for vacation homes and yachts to raise $14 billion over 10 years. Source: budget proposals released by the White House, House Budget Committee, and Congressional Progressive Caucus
You have the opportunity to influence this process by communicating with your legislators about what you believe should be done. Are certain tax breaks important to you? Do you believe some tax breaks should be eliminated from the tax code? This is your opportunity to influence Washington. Take Action.
More Resources â¦Interactive Visualization: See the cost of tax breaks, how theyâve changed over time, and who benefits. â¦Complete Data on Tax Breaks: Download data and explore the cost of every tax break every year from 1974 to the present. â¦Federal Budget 101: Understand who decides the federal budget, where the money comes from, and where it goes.
Numbers updated April 2014 to reflect the latest Treasury Department tax break estimates.