Tag Archives: IRS

What’s in the GOP Tax Bill?

Tuesday, 07 November 2017 07:06

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, November 6, 2017:

The GOP tax reform bill presented last Thursday attempts to be “revenue neutral” within 10 years. By giving most of the cuts to corporate taxpayers, there’s precious little left for the middle class to enjoy. The problem is not only the mathematics — trying to match the “give” with the “take” — but the politics: Democrats will work to scuttle any attempt to relieve fiscal pressure on entrepreneurs (i.e., capitalists) who are largely carrying the burden of supporting the government. Absent any attempt to cut spending — the tax bill’s 429 pages offer little help with that — what’s left, as has been said, is simply moving the chairs around on the deck of the Titanic.

First,

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The IRS Continues to Hire Repeat Offenders

Thursday, 24 August 2017 05:29

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, August 23, 2017:

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Following its investigation in 2014, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA, shown above) concluded that the IRS was hiring previously employed thugs with known criminal backgrounds, including backgrounds of failing to file or pay their income taxes, falsifying documents, accessing private records of American taxpayers in order to harass them, disruption while at work, and taking time off without permission.

It made various suggestions to the IRS, which were ignored. When an unnamed Senator asked the TIGTA to do an update, the IG found that nothing had changed: thugs were still hiring thugs at the IRS.

From the update released in July:

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Inspector General Says the IRS is Rehiring People Who Were Fired for Illegal Behavior

Wednesday, 23 August 2017 05:34

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, August 22, 2017:

Seal of the United States Internal Revenue Ser...

Seal of the United States Internal Revenue Service.

The IRS ignored a report issued in December 2014 by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) that revealed that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was rehiring people it had previously fired for misconduct. That misconduct included failure to file and pay their own income taxes, falsifying documents, and theft of and illegal use of sensitive taxpayer information. What’s to keep the IRS from ignoring that report’s update, released in late July?

The latest report from the TIGTA scorned the IRS for continuing the practice:

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Good, Bad News From IRS: Audits Down Again; New Treasury Secretary Wants Larger Budget

Friday, 24 February 2017 06:40

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, February 23, 2017:

Seven years ago the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audited one out of every 90 individual income tax returns. Last year it was one out of every 119. This year it is expected to be just one out of every 143. And for those who don’t include a Schedule C or other special (i.e., tax shelter, farm income) forms, the audit rate drops even further: one out of every 330.

Even high-income earners (over $1 million a year) can breathe easier, at least for the moment. In 2015, the agency audited nearly 10 out of every 100 of those returns while this year it’ll only be able to audit

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Not All Travel Bans Apply to Foreigners

Thursday, 09 February 2017 06:45

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Wednesday, February 8, 2017:

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The federal government published the final rules on Monday on just how the Department of Transportation, the Department of State and the Internal Revenue Service, working together, can disrupt one’s plans to travel abroad:

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Another Travel Ban: This One From IRS, for Back Taxes

Wednesday, 08 February 2017 06:22

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, February 7, 2017:

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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has released its final details on just how it can revoke American citizens’ passports for being behind in paying their taxes. Effective Monday, February 6:

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Trump Names Indiana Senator Dan Coats as Director of National Intelligence

Saturday, 07 January 2017 07:01

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, January 6, 2017:

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Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team said Thursday that he has picked Republican Indiana Senator Dan Coats to head the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Coats is a hardliner on Russia but soft on the Second Amendment.

Coats would spearhead changes to make the ODNI more efficient. Created in 2004 to coordinate the information-gathering efforts of 17 separate agencies, the ODNI is currently headed by outgoing director James Clapper (shown, middle).

Clapper was unanimously confirmed for that position in August 2010 by the Senate, but

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Hypocrisy Reigns as New York Times Pays No Income Taxes Yet Attacks Trump’s Taxes

Monday, 03 October 2016 15:47

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, October 3, 2016:

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The New York Times claimed on Sunday that the front page of Trump’s state income tax returns filed in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut in 1995 prove that the man came close to being a tax cheat:

Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years.

The mainstream media trumpeted the storyline incessantly without mentioning simple truths buried in the Times’ report: The hit piece was based on just three pages of the voluminous tax returns Trump filed in that year;

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The “Ratchet Effect” at Work Once Again, This Time Against Gunsmiths

Monday, 03 October 2016 08:43

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, October 3, 2016:

English: This image is of economist Robert Higgs.

Robert Higgs

In interpersonal relations, the ratchet effect has been called “What’s mine is mine; what’s yours is negotiable.” In politics it’s been called “Two steps leftward, one step back.” Robert Higgs, a Senior Fellow in Political Economy at the Independent Institute for nearly a quarter century, described the effect much more elegantly: once a crisis that calls for more government has passed, state power usually recedes, but it rarely returns to its original levels; thus each emergency leaves the scope of government a little wider than before.

Thomas Jefferson put it this way: “The natural progress of things is for the government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.”

The latest example is the State Department, through its Directorate of Defense Trade Affairs (DDTC), expanding its definition of “gunsmithing” so that it is called “manufacturing,” thus allowing it to

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Moment of Truth for Koskinen in Probe of IRS Targeting of Conservatives

Thursday, 15 September 2016 05:55

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, September 14, 2016:

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Representative John Fleming (R-La.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, filed a motion on Tuesday to bring a “privileged resolution” to the House floor calling for the impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen (shown). He told reporters at a press conference that “after so many months of waiting, it was time to move forward.”

Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the caucus, agreed, saying, “On Thursday we’ll find out if we actually have the votes and move forward.”

Skepticism abounds.

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Trump: Repeal Johnson Amendment That Muzzles Pastors

Saturday, 10 September 2016 05:30

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, September 9, 2016:

On Friday, at the Family Research Council’s convention in Washington, D.C., Donald Trump is expected to reiterate his call to repeal the Johnson Amendment, in line with a similar call in the GOP platform.

During his acceptance speech, Trump thanked the evangelical community for their support, adding:

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Apple’s Issue With EU Order to Pay $14.5B Tax to Ireland Is About Sovereignty

Thursday, 01 September 2016 05:51

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, August 31, 2016:

Tim Cook, Apple COO, in january 2009, after Ma...

Tim Cook, Apple CEO

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook sharply criticized the European Commission’s Thursday ruling that his company must pay $14.5 billion in taxes to Ireland for what it said were illegal tax breaks. Cook explained that as the world’s largest company his is also the world’s largest taxpayer. He reminded his customers that Steve Jobs rescued the town of Cork, Ireland, from a failing economy when he opened an Apple factory there in 1980:

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Trump’s Plan for “Winning the Global Competition”

Wednesday, 10 August 2016 04:40

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, August 9, 2016:

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During his hour-long speech on Monday at the Detroit Economic Club, Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump was serious and reasonable, avoiding histrionics and the temptation to push back against protesters who interrupted him several times. He followed his script and peppered the economic landscape with his wish list of actions he would take as president to “Make America Great Again.”

It was a very long list:

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Will this Effort Finally Break Through the Clintons’ Teflon Coating?

Saturday, 16 July 2016 05:56

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Friday, July 15, 2016:

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE)

The chemical name for Teflon is Polytetrafluoroethylene, or PTFE. For Hillary Clinton it’s called the Mainstream Media. They have the same properties: nothing can get through. Appropriately it is used not only to coat pans and other cookware but also as a “graft” material (pun intended) in surgical procedures to keep bacteria and other infectious agents from adhering.

Marsha Blackburn may have the solution (pun still intended):

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Federal Court Slams IRS in Tea Party Targeting Case

Friday, 25 March 2016 04:31

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, March 24, 2016:

On Thursday a federal appeals court finally ran out of patience with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and slammed the attorneys defending the agency. Judge Raymond Kethledge, writing for the three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, said:

Among the most serious allegations a federal court can address are that an executive agency [such as the IRS] has targeted citizens for mistreatment based on their political views. No citizen … should be targeted or even have to fear being targeted, on those grounds.

Yet those are the grounds on which the plaintiffs allege they were mistreated by the IRS.… The allegations are substantial.

Kethledge then directed his ire specifically at the IRS:

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Articles of Impeachment Issued Against IRS Commissioner

Thursday, 29 October 2015 04:15

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, October 28, 2015:

View image | gettyimages.com

In its attempt to get to the bottom of the Tea Party targeting scandal, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee introduced articles of impeachment on Tuesday against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen for lying, stalling, and deceiving Congress.

Koskinen was sold to the Senate as the one to break open and expose the scandal, promising to restore the IRS’s heavily damaged credibility. The Senate confirmed him as head of the IRS in December 2013, 59-36, and he took over as acting director in May 2013.

Almost from the beginning Koskinen has been, to put it charitably,

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Justice Department Declares Lois Lerner Innocent in IRS Targeting Scandal

Wednesday, 28 October 2015 04:31

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, October 25, 2015:

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On Friday, in a letter to the chairman and the ranking member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, Peter Kadzik, the assistant attorney general of the Justice Department, let Lois Lerner (shown) off the hook:

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Government Investigates Itself, Declares Itself Innocent

Wednesday, 28 October 2015 04:22

This article was published by The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, October 26, 2015:

The key foundational principles upon which the American Republic is built include “checks and balances” and an “informed electorate” made up of moral citizens who care about their country and their freedoms. The Encyclopedia Britannica explains that the three powers of government – executive, legislative, and judicial – are separated in order “to prevent actions by the other branches,” which, if combined, define tyranny. In the United States, states are squared off against the national government as another check and balance.

John Adams said, however, that the Constitutional limitations work only “for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

The letter from the Justice Department (executive branch)

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Tax-credit Private-school Scholarship Funding Explodes in Oklahoma

Wednesday, 25 March 2015 06:17

This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, March 24, 2015:

View image | gettyimages.com

Many Oklahoma taxpayers are paying less in state income taxes, thanks to contributions made to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) last year.

It’s a new wrinkle, and many of those opening envelopes from the Oklahoma Tax Commission are in for a pleasant surprise. A single taxpayer contributing $2,000 to an SGO last year will save $1,000 in state income taxes. A couple contributing $4,000 will save $2,000. These are credits, not deductions, based on one-half the contribution. Translation: Every dollar of credit saves one dollar in state taxes.

For those able to give more — think successful small business owners, lawyers, accountants, physicians, software engineers, farmers, ranchers, and other business owners operating as regular C corporations — that letter in the mail this month could generate even greater excitement.

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Even Fewer IRS Audits This Year

Thursday, 26 February 2015 05:55

This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, February 25, 2015:

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Obama is not the first president to use the IRS to bludgeon his opposition.

A year ago John Koskinen, head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), was heard complaining that his agency was suffering from budget cuts that forced him to reduce his staff, which caused fewer audits in any year since 2005. Last year Koskinen complained:

I have not figured out either philosophically or psychologically why nobody [in Congress] seems to care whether we collect the revenue [we are owed] or not.

Coupled with increased responsibilities to enforce the mandates under ObamaCare and increasingly bad publicity, Koskinen continues to have to make do with less. A year ago he had $11.2 billion to spend. This year he has just $10.8 billion. And requests for more money from Congress continue to fall on deaf ears. In a phone interview with USA Today on Monday, Koskinen admitted that he runs an agency that is “not the world’s most beloved.” It’s also continuing to decline in credibility. In a speech to the New York State Bar Association on Tuesday he said:

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