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IRS Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 26, 2017 38 Comments
Two big items happened today concerning the IRS. No, the agency still exists and we have to pay taxes. However, the agency has apologized for targeting conservative groups due to their political beliefs during President Barack Obama's administration. Also, it's now official that IRS Commissioner John Koskinen will leave in November as President Donald Trump announced a new leader.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 08, 2017 78 Comments
Lois Lerner was the IRS official at the center of the scandal over targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups. The evidence was overwhelming that Tea Party and conservative groups had applications for tax exempt status delayed or denied, while liberal groups did not, and that this targeting was deliberate. Documents and hard drives went missing, Lerner pleaded the 5th, and there were years of obfuscation and delay in producing documents and information. The House Oversight Committee produced this video in 2014 summarizing what had happened:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on July 30, 2017 19 Comments
The IRS seems to be in a constant state of administrative shambles.  Former IRS employees fired for falsifying documents, illegally accessing taxpayer information, and a range of other conduct, ethics, and legal issues are being rehired by the same agency that fired them.  This rehiring reportedly occurs despite flags and notes on the former-employee's personnel file. The IRS claims that it's too "cost prohibitive" to verify that the employees they hire had not already been fired by the agency. You can't make this stuff up.

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 14, 2017 5 Comments
The House Ways and Means Committee has passed a bill that limits when the IRS can take action on taxpayer assets. From The Hill:
The bill concerns cases where taxpayers are suspected of “structuring” transactions under $10,000 to avoid bank-reporting requirements. Under the legislation, the IRS would only be able to seize funds in suspected structuring cases when the funds came from illegal sources or the transactions were structured in order to conceal other criminal activity. Additionally, the legislation would establish a process to review seizures.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on July 10, 2017 12 Comments
In March of 2015, more than twenty armed agents rolled up to Mii’s Bridal & Tuxedo in Garland, Texas. The store's owners, Tony and Somnuek Thangsongcharoen, were given two hours to cough up $10,000 to avoid seizure of their property for a tax bill of $31,422. When they were unable to provide the IRS with a check, agents proceeded with the seizure and auctioned off everything of value.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 25, 2017 23 Comments
It has been almost five years since news broke that officials at the IRS used the power of government to harass members of the Tea Party and other conservative groups. The media has largely ignored the scandal and so far, no one has gone to jail. Earlier this month, IRS officials claimed they couldn't testify because their lives were at risk. USA Today reported:
IRS officials say lives at risk in tea party bias case Details about tea party bias claims against the IRS could remain secret because current and former agency officials say their lives are in danger if they publicly testify about the case.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on April 17, 2017 30 Comments
Chris Matthews has invited liberals at the IRS to leak the audit status of President Trump's tax return. On this evening's Hardball, Matthews said: "we know there's no audit [of Trump.] Can't the IRS just make a statement, he's not under audit? Just make the announcement. By the way, that would be a good leak. Somebody at the IRS just leaking. I thought they were all liberals over there. Why doesn't somebody just leak it?" Pursuant to 26 US Code Sec. 7213, disclosing an individual's return information is "a felony punishable upon conviction by a fine in any amount not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment of not more than 5 years, or both."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 09, 2017 17 Comments
It is astonishing how much is being revealed about the "Deep State" since Donald Trump was inaugurated less than two months ago. This week, Wikileaks published almost 9,000 documents from the CIA about the agency’s own malware used to hack into anyone’s electronics make it look like the cyber-attack came from Russia. Now, after years of struggling for real justice from the Obama Administration that falsely claimed Tea Party groups were never targeted, citizen activists now have access to nearly 7,000 documents related to the illegal man-handling of their tax status applications by the Internal Revenue Service.

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 15, 2016 12 Comments
The Senate Finance Committee has discovered that 27 IRS employees in fiscal 2015 spent over $1.4 million on travel expenses to use "high-end car services and luxury apartment and hotel stays." One member of the committee said the report hows that the agency has not done anything to reduce waste. Federal employees must spend like a "prudent person" while traveling. These 27 employees traveled only 125 business days and the bills averaged $52,000 a year:
The committee found more than half of the long-term travel time was spent in the Washington D.C., area. It found cases of five employees living in hotels, primarily in the capital, for months at a time without looking for lower-cost housing or having their per diem rates reduced as outlined in federal guidelines.

Posted by Mary Chastain on November 07, 2016 26 Comments
Oh boy. PAGING THE IRS! The list of wrongdoings with the Clinton Foundation continues to grow. Another Wikileaks dump shows one Clinton aide accusing Chelsea Clinton of using Clinton Foundation funds to pay for wedding among other things: Chelsea Foundation Wedding

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on November 04, 2016 13 Comments
An FBI investigation, investigation by Congressional committee, DOJ investigation into the Clinton Foundation, and now the IRS -- yet, Hillary's still polling above 50%. A Dallas-based IRS office is digging into the Clinton Foundation and why the entity remains tax exempt. While the foundation's bookkeeping appears rather solid and above reproach, as Joe Pappalardo from the Dallas Observer reports, whether Hillary used the foundation to buy influence and favors as Secretary of State is where the story gets a bit sticky.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 06, 2016 25 Comments
CBS News reports that criminals make an estimated 10,000 IRS scam phone calls each week and that the scammers are ruthless in preying on Americans' fear of the IRS's unique and expansive power. Not only is the IRS the "the most feared federal agency in the country," but it's also deemed by the majority of Americans as "frequently" abusing its power, an abuse with which Tea Party groups and conservatives are well aware. Happily, Indian police have busted a large IRS phone "scam center" located in three buildings on the outskirts of Mumbai.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 26, 2016 16 Comments
I recently noted that President Obama's climate change edict for our national security strategists shows that he does not take warfare against American opponents seriously. However, the President takes citizen opposition very seriously. For example, he is unleashing one of his most potent tools against Americans opting out of purchasing Obamacare. Over 20 million Americans opted to pay a penalty rather that purchase health insurance. So, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has just sent them a formal letter suggesting they make a different choice.
...Getting a letter from the IRS can be a threatening and nerve-racking experience; it seldom is seen as a suggestion and more of a threat. But at President Obama’s direction, the IRS is “reaching out” to people who paid the tax penalty for not buying mandatory health insurance or who claimed an exemption in hopes of “attracting” more people to sign up for ObamaCare insurance. The government is particularly interested in compliance from healthy young people.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 15, 2016 14 Comments
The House Freedom Caucus and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) struck a deal to hold a hearing for IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, thus delaying a Thursday House vote to impeach him. The caucus had submitted a resolution to impeach Koskinen for impeding "Congress' effort to investigate the IRS for tough assessments of Tea Party groups that sought tax exemptions several years ago." Caucus members Members claim Koskinen failed to provide proper email documents and lied about deleting some emails. They also claim he has shown, “little effort to recover the lost documents.”
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