tagged w/ Internal Revenue Service
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Just because you are a conservative and paranoid, doesn't mean the IRS is not after you. And, assuming the AP was not hacked again, this is precisely what happened. In a stunning disclosure, the supposedly impartial Internal Revenue Service has admitted and apologized for flagging and subjecting to extra reviews, conservative political groups - those that included the words "tea party" or "patriot" - during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.
No such privilege was apparently afforded to groups identifying themselves as "liberal." It does make one wonder, just how far the IRS goes to make the lives of conservatives a living hell: will all 2012 tax audits be those who on their facebook profile admit to liking Ron Paul? And just how far does the IRS invade personal privacy to determine how any one tax filer is indeed, a "conservative?" But don't worry - aside from the obvious persecutions, America is a free country for one and all....continued at:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-10/irs-admits-apologizes-targeting-conservatives-during-2012-electionJust because you are a conservative and paranoid, doesn't mean the IRS is not... more
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Dagum
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Another Christian organization is howling at the moon because their special tax exemption, which non-religious groups don’t get, isn’t special enough. The right wing Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) organization is urging pastors into the pulpit to preach politics instead of God. Pulpit Freedom Sunday is an effort to force the IRS to take the pastors to court for breaking the law so they can sue and argue the prohibition against taking a perk and making political endorsements too is a violation of the First Amendment.
“We’re hoping the IRS will respond by doing what they have threatened,” Erik Stanley, ADF’s Sr. Legal Counsel said. “We have to wait for it to be applied to a particular church or pastor so that we can challenge it [the Johnson Act] in court. We don’t think it’s going to take long for a judge to strike this down as unconstitutional.”Another Christian organization is howling at the moon because their special tax... more
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House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) admitted on Monday that the federal government is in serious need of extra revenue. But since taking control of the House in January, Republican lawmakers have scuttled proposals that could reap billions in added government revenue by better policing tax evasion, saying government tax collectors should make better use of existing resources in this era of fiscal constraint.
The U.S. government loses around $300 billion in revenue each year because of tax cheats, some of whom hide their earnings in offshore accounts or disguise them using complicated business structures, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Since 2001, tax evasion has cost as much as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush tax cuts and the 2009 stimulus combined, according to the financial-services analysis firm The Motley Fool.
In February, the Obama administration requested $339.3 million in additional funding for the Internal Revenue Service in 2012 to chase this costly tax evasion. According to the IRS, that extra funding would be paid back twice over with the additional revenue brought in through enforcement.
Most outside economists agree.
"There is no question that the IRS agents are able to produce enough extra revenue to be a good return on that investment," said Wayne Angell, a conservative economist who is a former governor of the Federal Reserve Board and has previously worked for Bear Stearns.
Yet instead of supporting increased enforcement, the GOP has been trying to cut IRS funding. In March, the House GOP sought to strip $600 million from the IRS budget as part of the continuing budget resolution. IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman told a house subcommittee those cuts would cost the government $4 billion in lost revenue. The final budget deal left the tax collection agency's annualized budget unchanged at $12.1 billion, $486 million less than the Obama administration had requested.
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said the agency could better enforce tax dodgers without additional funds, mentioning a controversial private debt collection program that was defunded in 2009. "The IRS killed one of the most efficient and effective programs to collect back taxes just as the program was taking off," Grassley said in a statement emailed to The Huffington Post. "The IRS, like other federal agencies, has room to cut waste and work smarter."
But, Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.) said Republican efforts to slash IRS funding were a perfect example of the broader GOP strategy of "cut first, think later."
"Cutting IRS enforcement funding to reduce spending is like cutting off your nose to spite your face," Serrano said. "If tax cheats are allowed to run with their money without fear of an IRS agent catching them, the deficit will inevitably grow."
Republicans will try to cut the agency's budget again for fiscal year 2012, according to the Associated Press. The Obama administration has requested $244 million in additional IRS funding in 2012 to better investigate offshore tax evasion, spot corporate and high-wealth tax scofflaws and implement enacted legislation. The IRS estimates that these initiatives could generate $646 million in new revenue by the end of next year and projects that if begun in 2012 they could yield $1.3 billion in additional revenue in 2014.
Republicans have also said that increased IRS funding does not always greater revenue gains. Michelle Dimarob, a spokeswoman for the House Ways and Means Committee chaired by Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), noted that IRS enforcement-derived revenue went up by more than 17 percent in 2007, even though the agency's budget remained at 2006 levels. That year, the agency's enforcement revenue hit $59.2 billion, with a budget of $10.6 billion. In contrast, Dimarob said, the IRS collected only $57.6 billion in enforcement revenue in 2010, with a $12.1 billion budget.
David Cay Johnston, who teaches tax law at Syracuse University law and business schools, said cutting IRS funding would increase the deficit. But more importantly, he said, it would encourage lawless behavior by the most sophisticated tax cheats, who know how to circumvent a cursory audit.
"Here's the real question to ask: The Internal Revenue Service is the money-making division of the government. It's the sales department. Why would you cut your sales force when you have the budget constraints that we do?" said Johnston, who in 2001 won a Pulitzer Prize for his New York Times coverage of the U.S. tax code. "It is astonishing to me that people who want law and order on other issues want to handcuff the tax police.House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) admitted on Monday that the federal government is... more
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Bigger the Company, less the tax it pays.
They are effectively assisted by Accountants ,who under the guise of tax planning ,cheat the Government of Taxes.
Sting is the Government approves them and enroll them by training them/approving the Institutes that train them in their discipline.
They are called Financial Consultants,Chartered Accountants(chartered to evade tax?)
If the Accountants were to be honest, there would be no tax frauds.
http://ramanan50.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/google-and-general-electric-pay-no-taxes-get-bailouts-refunds/Bigger the Company, less the tax it pays.
They are effectively assisted by... more
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The Internal Revenue Service says it will need an battalion of 1,054 new auditors and staffers and new facilities at a cost to taxpayers of more than $359 million in fiscal 2012 just to watch over the initial implementation of President Obama's healthcare reforms. Among the new corps will be 81 workers assigned to make sure tanning salons pay a new 10 percent excise tax. Their cost: $11.5 million.
http://www.treasury.gov/about/budget-performance/Documents/CJ_FY2012_IRS_508.pdfThe Internal Revenue Service says it will need an battalion of 1,054 new auditors and... more
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By David P Shirk
Technology is a very useful tool, especially if you happen to be a bank or financial institution seeking to maintain control of a nation’s monetary means. Or – a government that hails such nonsense as the only way to bring about order and peace. The truth is that the wheelbarrows of inflated money probably will not happen thanks to the wonders of technology, but what is to come is far worse. The reality is that those who clamor for financial regulation fail to see how such regulation furthers government power at our expense – not the fat cats.
For instance, Qe2 (quantitative easing) has the goal of injecting 500 Billion dollars into the market. Well, that’s the common misconception anyway. Sadly, despite this insane amount of money being tossed about (nearly $1,600 for every living man, woman, and child in the US), I would bet my bottom dollar that at least a third of the US population has never even heard of it. Of the two thirds that have, about one probably thinks it is simply the treasury printing more money, giving it to banks, and the banks will simply be lending it out to we the people to help our finances. The final third is divided, but smell a rat.
The main complaint of Qe2 seems to be the all too real threat of hyperinflation. The most historic example of such a policy gone wrong was after WWI when Germanys’ currency was printed to an excess so extreme that their money became worthless. Too much money, not enough goods. Yet inflation itself has little to do with the price of goods – that is merely the result of inflation. Inflation is in all reality the increase of money supply (hence the term), and until recently, was not measured by the price difference in a gallon of milk (a layman’s example – CPI for the more savvy). Yet the idea that such a thing happening today to such an extreme as in post WWI Germany is a little misrepresented, and therefore people tend to miss the bigger picture.
First off all, we need to remember that the bulk of what is on the banks balance sheets does not exist in terms of money that can be used by anyone at a store. In other words – the money that we use in bills and coinage represents less than 10% of what the banks have on their books. This is nothing new and has been going on for well over 30 years now. So the idea that an increase of $1,600 for every living person in the US will see us all pushing around wheelbarrows full of useless paper money is a little unrealistic. It is this fact however that has caused the US in large to completely ignore the danger of inflation for as long as they have.
So a gallon of milk may have gone up maybe a 30% in the last few decades – big deal. As long as people think of inflation as the increase in the price of groceries, some may just be able to justify that. Yet houses have in most cases gone up about 300%, and they cost far more then groceries. The price of renting an apartment has also skyrocketed percentage wise versus the 30% milk. Gas? Well, we all know that one. As to incomes produced from all this money – fairly flat for the last 30 years.
By not having to print wheelbarrows full of cash to pay for houses etc., and keeping the dollar amount on balance sheets only, the banks have figured out how to inflate a currency without people ever seeing it as a real problem. So money supply has become to the average person what the Greek God Zeus would be to a Christian – a mythical being that possesses no basis in reality. If you cannot see it, then it does not exist. Computers and intranets are needed to track the billions of cashless exchanges made each day. These provide the banks with the means to shift billions of dollars around each day that simply do not exist (at least to us peons anyway). So while many of us use technology like the internet to learn and expand our horizons, the banks use it as a dangerous weapon. I think the irony of that fact can only be eclipsed by the irony that our government places banking institutions as the #1 priority when it comes to cyber protection. Using an unconstitutional institution with an unconstitutional controller funding trillions in government debt while indebting an entire nation, the FED has really outdone itself.
But that is hardly the best part.
Qe2 is not new idea, and was already tried back in 2008. In 2008 the Fed purchased 1.7 trillion in US treasury and mortgages backed securities. That did not work, and we were told repeatedly by Obama, Bernanke, Geitner, etc., that the reason why is that it simply was not enough. That was over $5,400 for every living person in the US (1,700,000,000,000/310,000,000). How did such a large amount of money get thrown around, and at the same time, accomplish nothing?
First off – note what the money actually went to – buying the debt from the government and financial sectors (the ones who hold the mortgage backed securities). Keeping in mind that the Federal Reserve funds the US treasury, prints its money, and controls it, we know that the US Government and the Federal Reserve have a symbiotic relationship. This adds insult to injury. The insult is that those who chose to live within their means have their savings diminished by a body they have no say over. The injury is that those who speak up are either labeled as simpletons for attempting to put this problem into perspective in layman’s terms, or an idiot who dares believe themselves to be smarter than the government and FED.
Second is that the FED said something quite brilliant that pretty much sums up the whole mess. Simple put – the belief of people in a policy is the reality. This is after all how they have managed to get away with robbing us blind since 1913. As long as they can prolong the consequences and create the perception that they are acting in our best interest, the FED is in affect untouchable. Naturally it is not a true statement of reality, but rather how they can even flaunt their strategy, and the majority still does not get it despite hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth so to speak. Their perception on the whole matter has created a temporary reality that in the end brings ruin to entire nations. Government says a debt based economy is a good thing via central control via the FED. Let’s break that idiocy down shall we?
Debt – something that is owed or that one is bound to pay to or perform for another; a liability or obligation to pay or render something; the condition of being under such an obligation. National – of, pertaining to, or maintained by a nation as an organized whole or independent political unit; national affairs; owned, preserved, or maintained by the federal government; peculiar or common to the whole people of a country; devoted to one’s own nation; patriotic; concerning or encompassing an entire nation.
National Debt – money owed by everyone (that by definition is patriotic to pay – gag). $14,000,000,000,000/310,000,000 peop....
http://www.peacefreedomprosperity.com/?p=3867By David P Shirk
Technology is a very useful tool, especially if you happen to be a... more
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Ron Paul VS Huckabee….you decide
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Getting Ready for Tax Day: IRS Puts Out Bid to Buy Sixty Police Shotguns
See Full Report...According to the FedBixOpps website, the IRS is in the market for sixty police shotguns:VIDEO...http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/warning-ready-for-tax-day-irs-puts-out-bid-to-buy-sixty-police-shotguns/
New taxes will be taken out of the hide of the average American, as always. In order to enforce this looting, the IRS and its Criminal Investigation Division will need more muscle in the coming months. That’s why they are arming themselves to the teeth. The role of the Criminal Investigation Division is to “generate the maximum deterrent effect, enhance voluntary compliance, and promote public confidence in the tax system,” according to Treasury Department, a branch office of the Federal Reserve (currently run by the criminal Timothy Geithner, the man with Goldman Sachs on his speed dialer).Getting Ready for Tax Day: IRS Puts Out Bid to Buy Sixty Police Shotguns
See Full... more
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If you are like most Americans, you won't start thinking about working on your income tax return until long after ringing in the New Year. However, if you want to avoid the stress of digging through an accumulation of bills and invoices to provide proof of income and/or expenses, the time to begin is now. It is also a good time to set up recording keeping for 2010 so that at the end of next year, you will have all the information at your fingertips.If you are like most Americans, you won't start thinking about working on your... more
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CIOs are starting to embrace the idea of protecting against the risk that comes about as the unintended consequence of Web 2.0 technology. At the same time, data is becoming increasingly regulated, which is creating new exposures, particularly in the areas of data privacy and reputational risk,” Drew Bartkiewicz, vice president of cyber and new media risk at The Hartford, tells CIOZone’s Latom McCartney.
http://information-security-resources.com/2009/12/07/cyber-liability-insurance-mitigates-exposure/CIOs are starting to embrace the idea of protecting against the risk that comes about... more
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Every week for the past four years the Privacy Rights Clearing House has been chronicling data breaches on a weekly basis. “These are the mega-breaches that can skew the figures in terms of the number of people victimized,” says Paul Stephens, PRCH’s director of policy and advocacy. Here are the ten biggest, most damaging and most embarrassing breaches to date this year.
http://information-security-resources.com/2009/12/04/ten-most-damaging-data-breaches-of-2009/Every week for the past four years the Privacy Rights Clearing House has been... more
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Hollywood is paying the crisis and its stars are on the sunset boulevard. The last one is Nicolas Cage who will have to pay to the american Internal Revenue Service seven million dollars.
http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/movies/hollywoodcrisi201109.htmlHollywood is paying the crisis and its stars are on the sunset boulevard. The last one... more
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Echo And The Bunnymen have canceled their forthcoming North American tour. The band were due to tour the States beginning November 15 but have had to pull all their dates due to tax issues.Echo And The Bunnymen have canceled their forthcoming North American tour. The band... more
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Forget about vampires, ghouls and zombies. You were much more likely to receive a fright this year from something lurking in your e-mail. There were the usual crop of Trojan horses and phishing expeditions, and as the surprising list points out, some of the scares go all the way up to White House and the FBI.
http://information-security-resources.com/2009/11/01/top-ten-email-related-disasters-of-2009/Forget about vampires, ghouls and zombies. You were much more likely to receive a... more
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Accidents Of History Created U.S. Health System
If you want to understand how to fix today's health insurance system, you'd be smart to look first at how it was born. How did Americans end up with a system in which employers pay for our health insurance? After all, they don't pay for our groceries or our gas.
It turns out there never was any central logic at work. The evolution of the American health care system began in the 1920s, when choices boiled down to which crazy cure you preferred.
Dr. John Brinkley, for instance, was a huge hit in American radio with his health advice shows. For whatever problem folks had, Brinkley had one fabulous solution: transplant a goat gland into your body. He pitched it as being perfect for everything from dementia to impotence to flatulence. But if, somehow, a goat gland didn't cure your ills, you could always use Bonnore's Electro Magnetic Bathing Fluid or Clark Stanley's Snake Oil Liniment.
Before the birth of modern medicine, hospitals were poorhouses where the indigent went to die. Then came the advent of effective medicines, especially antibiotics, along with a revolution in medical schools.
Suddenly, says economic historian Melissa Thomasson, "hospitals are marketing themselves as places to have babies." The professor at the Miami University in Ohio says that in the early part of the 20th century, hospitals were able to focus on happy outcomes.
Health care became much more effective, and much more expensive. Clean hospitals, educated doctors and real pharmacological research cost money. People proved willing to pay for care when they were really sick, but it wasn't yet common to go for checkups or survivable illnesses.
By the late 1920s, hospitals noticed most of their beds were going empty every night. They wanted to get people who weren't deathly ill to start coming in.
"The war economy is an entirely different ballgame," Thomasson says. The government rationed goods even as factories ramped up production and needed to attract workers. Factory owners needed a way to lure employees. She explains that the owners turned to fringe benefits, offering more and more generous health plans.
The next big step in the evolution of health care was also an accident. In 1943, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that employer-based health care should be tax free. A second law, in 1954, made the tax advantages even more attractive.
Thomasson cites the huge impact of those measures on plan participation. "You start from 9 percent of the population in 1940 to 63 percent in 1953," she says. "Everybody starts getting in on it. It just grows by gangbusters. By the 1960s, 70 percent [of the population] is covered by some kind of private, voluntary health insurance plan."
Thus employer-based insurance, which started with Blue Cross selling coverage to Texas teachers and spread because of government price controls and tax breaks, became our system. By the mid-1960s, Thomasson says, Americans started to see that system — in which people with good jobs get health care through work and almost everyone else looks to government — as if it were the natural order of things.
But to Thomasson and other economic historians, there's nothing natural or inevitable about it. Instead, they see it as the profound result of historical accidents.Accidents Of History Created U.S. Health System
If you want to understand how to... more
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This is all getting so ridiculous. As soon as a candidate for office under Obama, we find out about their greed and then we are told: "should not interfere with his appointment"!
Why the heck not?? This is the reason we do vetting on politicians. I am more disappointed every day as many Democrats are as well with Obama wanting all these THIEVES in the White House. Boy talk about a "good old boy" network!This is all getting so ridiculous. As soon as a candidate for office under Obama, we... more
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Photographs from a job fair held by the Internal Revenue Service in New York, NY on Tuesday, October 28, 2008.Photographs from a job fair held by the Internal Revenue Service in New York, NY on... more
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Perhaps. It depends on who you are and exactly what you’re saying…
Take Pastor James David Manning of Atlah World Ministries, for example. The IRS won’t advise whether is being investigated or not. But it is clear that Pastor Manning is generating some publicity for his statements earlier in the year, in which he repeatedly calls Senator Barack Obama a “Mack Daddy” and says that he has pimped white women and black women (yes, he made a distinction as between the two) in an effort to get his campaign started. In that sermon, he further refers to Obama as trash, Obama’s father as “African in heat father” and Obama’s mother as “a trashy white woman” before later referring to Obama as an “emissary of the devil” - yes, this all from a man who professes to be a man of God.
Later in the sermon, which Manning posted on Youtube (you can watch it below), he touts President Clinton for pumping money into Manning’s Harlem community - and admonishes the community for not taking care of the quarter billion dollar contribution. Manning is otherwise opposed to gentrification of Harlem; the ATLAH stands for All the Land Anointed Holy, his name for Harlem.
Manning doesn’t stop there. In another sermon, Manning further goes on to emphasize that Obama is “not black” but “white trash.”
A watchdog group, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, noted the video and filed a formal complaint with the IRS. The IRS has not confirmed whether Manning or Atlah are currently under investigation - but I’m betting that they are.
But wait, it’s okay to bad mouth Obama, right? Or McCain? Or Palin? Or Biden?
Sure it is, if it comes from you or me as private citizens. But tax-exempt organizations - including churches, schools and purely public charities - may not endorse candidates, raise funds for candidates or distribute statements for or against candidates.
In other words, whether you’re Pastor Manning speaking from the pulpit, Joe Paterno, Coach of Penn State University’s football team on the field or Gail J. McGovern, President and CEO of the American Red Cross speaking from the front lines of natural disasters, your speeches, articles and appearances will be subject to scrutiny (to be clear, the last two folks are merely examples of high profile leaders of tax exempt organizations and are not examples of folks who have said anything inappropriate with respect to the elections). Tax exempt organizations are aware of the rules that govern them - and most have guidelines in place to remind employees and representatives of the dangers of ignoring the rules against politicking. The ramifications, if such rules are broken, can be severe, including loss of tax-exempt status.
The Internal Revenue Service has information online which makes it convenient to file a complaint regarding tax-exempt organizations. You can find it here: http://www.irs.gov/irs/article/0,,id=178241,00.htmlPerhaps. It depends on who you are and exactly what you’re saying…... more
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