Tag Archives: Internal Revenue Service

Sometimes A “Preposterous Assertion” Leads To The Truth

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On Sunday Kimberly Strassel posted an article at the Wall Street Journal detailing some aspects of the current Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal. Ms. Strassel reminds us that leadership comes from the top. President Obama didn’t have to be directly involved in the increased IRS scrutiny of conservative groups–he simply had to set the tone.

The article states:

Mr. Obama didn’t need to pick up the phone. All he needed to do was exactly what he did do, in full view, for three years: Publicly suggest that conservative political groups were engaged in nefarious deeds; publicly call out by name political opponents whom he’d like to see harassed; and publicly have his party pressure the IRS to take action.

One of the Democrat talking point on this scandal is that it is the result of the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court in 2010. What that decision did was to allow corporations, associations, and political groups the same privileges in election campaigns that unions had enjoyed for years. The decision essentially leveled the playing field. Unions had been legally pouring money into campaigns for years whether their members supported the candidates they were supporting or not. The Citizens United decision meant that corporations would also have that right. It is interesting to note that corporations generally have a Board of Directors they have to answer to–unions are answerable only to their own leadership–the ones making the donations.

Ms. Strassel reminds us how the Obama campaign treated Idaho businessman and longtime Republican donor Frank VanderSloot:

Mr. VanderSloot is the Obama target who in 2011 made a sizable donation to a group supporting Mitt Romney. In April 2012, an Obama campaign website named and slurred eight Romney donors. It tarred Mr. VanderSloot as a “wealthy individual” with a “less-than-reputable record.” Other donors were described as having been “on the wrong side of the law.”

This was the Obama version of the phone call—put out to every government investigator (and liberal activist) in the land.

Twelve days later, a man working for a political opposition-research firm called an Idaho courthouse for Mr. VanderSloot’s divorce records. In June, the IRS informed Mr. VanderSloot and his wife of an audit of two years of their taxes. In July, the Department of Labor informed him of an audit of the guest workers on his Idaho cattle ranch. In September, the IRS informed him of a second audit, of one of his businesses. Mr. VanderSloot, who had never been audited before, was subject to three in the four months after Mr. Obama teed him up for such scrutiny.

This leads me back to the title of this article and to Ms. Stassel’s conclusion:

The IRS is easy to demonize, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It got its heading from a president, and his party, who did in fact send it orders—openly, for the world to see. In his Tuesday press grilling, no question agitated White House Press Secretary Jay Carney more than the one that got to the heart of the matter: Given the president’s “animosity” toward Citizens United, might he have “appreciated or wanted the IRS to be looking and scrutinizing those . . .” Mr. Carney cut off the reporter with “That’s a preposterous assertion.”

Preposterous because, according to Mr. Obama, he is “outraged” and “angry” that the IRS looked into the very groups and individuals that he spent years claiming were shady, undemocratic, even lawbreaking. After all, he expects the IRS to “operate with absolute integrity.” Even when he does not.

I need to go on the record again as saying that I do not believe President Obama should be impeached. I believe that he has encouraged overreach by government agencies and misdeeds by supporters, but I don’t believe he should be impeached. President Obama has had enough Chicago experience to know how to avoid leaving his fingerprints on any questionable activity–an impeachment would simply divide the country and accomplish nothing.

So what do we need to do? If the mounting scandals bother you, get involved–in either party. There are good men in both parties–find one you can support and get to work. Every candidate needs people to mail things, hold signs, make phone calls, or simply show up at rallies. If you want to see integrity brought to Washington, become part of the process.

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Using Scare Tactics To Discourage Whistleblowers

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I will admit that I have only followed current events for the last twenty years or so, but I can’t remember ever hearing anything like the story I am about to report.

Yesterday Breitbart.com reported that two ABC News reporters who entered the Peck Federal Building in Cincinnati were escorted through the building by an armed uniformed police officer with the Federal Protective Service. The Peck Building is a public building, it is also the home of the Internal Revenue Service office in Cincinnati.

The article at Breitbart reports:

At the [Cincinnati] IRS office on the fourth floor, a woman who answered the buzzer referred reporters to officials in Washington, though they were not returning very many calls. That staffer also said she was not allowed to speak to anyone – a line that was repeated by agency personnel during the week.

IRS headquarters in Washington denied that a no-talk rule was official policy because, after all, agency staffers still have a constitutional right to talk to whomever they want. …

Not so, said IRS folks in Ohio.

One of them, who asked not be named, told ABC News that security guards did remind employees of the official policy not to talk with the press – a warning cemented by the punch line “or risk losing our jobs.”

All we need is one honest, brave employee to come forward and explain exactly what happened. Unfortunately, that would be the Obama Administration’s worst nightmare and they will do everything they can to keep that from happening.

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The People Who Are Winning The Economic Lottery In President Obama’s Second Term

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The economy is recovering at the speed of snails. The last raise my husband received paid more to the government than it did to him–and he is one of the lucky ones who has a steady job. So who is prospering in the current economy?

On April 25, Forbes Magazine posted a list of America‘s wealthiest counties:

While Loudoun (VA) ranks at the top, it’s far from alone on the list of wealthiest counties that surround Washington. In fact, it’s just the beginning. The neighboring counties of Falls Church City, Fairfax, Arlington and Prince William in Virginia and Howard County in Maryland all make the cut, giving the D.C. area six of the nation’s ten wealthiest counties. All boast median household incomes between $93,000 and $117,000 annually.

This is one of many reasons why the Tea Party exists. This is also one of many reasons why the Tea Party is such a threat to the government establishment (both Democrats and Republicans). But it gets even more interesting…

Clarice Feldman posted an article at American Thinker today about how the current scandals are impacting the pocketbooks of Washington lawyers. The article is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but makes some really good points. The scene is a Washington bistro frequented by lawyers, politicians, and upper-level civil servants. The restaurant is packed with lawyers celebrating the coming uptick of business in Washington.

This is just a sample of the article–please follow the link above to read the entire article:

“What are the colored badges for?” I asked.

“They signify which scandal defendants they are representing so they can exchange useful procedural and related information without disclosing who they are representing or breaching client confidentiality. The orange tag means the attorney is representing someone in the Benghazi scandal.”

“I see seven — probably Petraeus, Clinton, Rice, Donilon, Brennan, Nuland, Rhodes. And the blue badge?” I asked, sipping the drink.

“IRS scandal,” George whispered, wiping the counter to appear more inconspicuous.

“Hmm,” I thought, “Shulman, Ingram, Miller, Lerner, and some others to be named at a later date. And the red badge?”

“Small table — must be Justice officials on the Associated Press scandal.”

“Yeah, so far Holder and his deputy Cole. Will Cole cover for Holder who preposterously testified he recused himself because he speaks to the press, that he can’t remember when he recused himself, and that he didn’t follow the statutory mandate for recusal procedure?”

“You did notice,” Joe laughed, “that the ‘security breach’ which Holder claims occasioned the wiretapping of reporters turns out to be AP waiting to publish until they got the CIA’s approval but before the White House crowd could publicly pat themselves on the back for getting the underwear bomber?”

“Wasn’t that something? The whole story is too flimsy to hold a drop of water and even the press can grasp this one.”

At least someone is actually prospering in the Obama economy.

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Why We Need To Drastically Shrink The Internal Revenue Service–Not Expand It

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Yesterday the Washington Times reported that someone is actually suing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Turn about is fair play! So what did the IRS do that resulted in a lawsuit.

The lawsuit charges that the IRS violated the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The article explains:

…(IRS) agents executed a search warrant for financial data on one employee – and that led to the seizure of information on 10 million, including state judges.

The search warrant did not specify that the IRS could take medical information, UPI said. And information technology officials warned the IRS about the potential to violate medical privacy laws before agents executed the warrant, the complaint said, as reported by UPI.

“Despite knowing that these medical records were not within the scope of the warrant, defendants threatened to ‘rip’ the servers containing the medical data out of the building if IT personnel would not voluntarily hand them over,” the complaint states, UPI reported.

The article reports that the records taken could impact up to one in 25 Americans.

Meanwhile, Forbes Magazine posted an article on Friday noting:

…Obamacare dramatically expands the authority and the scope of the Internal Revenue Service. Two provisions in particular will require thousands of new IRS agents, and billions in funding, to enforce: the law’s individual mandate, forcing most Americans to buy government-approved health insurance; and its employer mandate, forcing most employers to take money out of workers’ paychecks to purchase costly health insurance on their behalf.

The IRS will be enforcing the individual mandate. We knew that. What you may not be aware of is that there are a number of exceptions to the individual mandate, and the IRS has to have a good deal of information about you to see if you are eligible for one of those exceptions–they are only collecting all of this personal information for your own good!

The law is also written in a way that forces employers with 50 or more “full-time employees” offer “minimum essential coverage” in an “affordable” manner. There are all sorts of rules and regulations surrounding this that also require the IRS to collect more information on all of us.

The article in Forbes suggests a solution:

Others are suggesting that the duty to enforce the individual and employer mandates be taken out of IRS’ hands and moved into another agency. But, to me, this doesn’t make much sense. Do we really want another government agency to have sensitive information about our incomes and our insurance policies?

The only viable solution to this problem is to repeal the employer mandate altogether, and to replace the individual mandate with something else, like a limited open enrollment period, that does not require expanding the power and the authority of the IRS.

ObamaCare will not be repealed unless it becomes an obstacle for Democrats running for office. Until the American people make it clear that they will not vote for anyone who does not support the repeal of ObamaCare, we will be stuck with it. Even then, it may take a little time for politicians to get the message. The thing to remember is that there will be a point of no return–a place where ObamaCare has so totally impacted health care in America that it cannot be repealed. Hopefully we get repeal it before we reach that point.

 

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The Internal Revenue Service Scandal Raises More Questions Than It Answers

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Yesterday’s Daily Caller posted a story that asked the following question:

…could someone at the IRS have leaked Romney’s tax information to Reid? At the time, Reid claimed he learned of Romney’s tax background from someone who had once been an investor in Romney’s firm, though he wouldn’t say who.

The question arises because it has come to light that for the last two years, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been targeting conservative groups and leaking confidential information to liberal groups.

Harry Reid used his position as Senate Majority Leader to level charges at Mitt Romney that would have been impossible to disprove without totally compromising any bit of privacy Governor Romney might have had. In essence, he demanded that Mitt Romney prove a negative. The narrative went something like this:

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Reid claimed he had been called by someone who had invested in Romney’s former firm, Bain Capital. That person said Romney didn’t pay taxes for 10 years.

“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” Reid told the liberal news outlet. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?”

Romney’s campaign denied Reid’s accusations, eventually releasing a summary of the former Massachusetts governor’s taxes that — according to Romney staffers — showed he paid taxes over the last 20 years.

But Reid continued to argue that Romney’s tax returns included something that the Republican didn’t want everyone to see.

“He’s hiding something,” Reid said on a conference call. “He’s hiding something! It is so evident he’s hiding something!”

First of all, I seriously doubt the charges were true. However, since when did investors get to see the tax returns of board members of the companies in which they were investing? If in fact Harry Reid actually knew anything about Mitt Romney’s tax returns, where did he get that information?

Just a note–last year was the first year my husband and I have ever been audited. I am on the membership list of a number of conservative groups that probably have applied for tax exempt status. Hopefully, that is just a coincidence.

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How To Silence Your Political Opposition Before An Election

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Like it or not, political success in America has a lot to do with money. One way to stifle your political opposition is to dry up their money supply. One way to dry up their money supply is to refuse tax exempt status to their organizations that would buy advertising time in the major media. When you do that, their donations are no longer tax deductible and they receive less money. When you leave their tax-exempt status in limbo, they receive less in donations and thus have a smaller voice in the political process. That is the reason the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal is important.

Today’s Weekly Standard reports:

NBC’s Lisa Myers reported this morning that the IRS  deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 presidential election. The IRS commissioner “has known for at least a year that this was going on,” said Myers, “and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What’s going on here? The IRS denied it.

I don’t know if this would have made a difference. I am not sure how many people were or actually are paying attention to what is going on. Remember the stories we heard that said that the Tea Party was losing its impact? Well, due to the actions of the IRS, it was losing its funding.

I am not sure what the proper response to this mess is. I watched some of the hearings this morning and was disgusted. The Democrats are still denying and defending, and I am not sure if anyone is noticing what is going on. We are in danger of losing our system of government–we are on the edge of having our government tell us what we can think and how we can vote. We just watched the government defund the people who disagreed with them. My heart hurts for America right now. Unless more Americans wake up to what is happening, we have a government that controls us–not a government that represents us.

Rearranging The Deck Chairs On The Titanic

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The Obama Administration has promised to get to the bottom of the Internal Revenue Service‘s (IRS) scandal involving the targeting of conservative groups. They have promised that the person responsible will be held accountable. Because of the time frame, they can’t blame it on George Bush, but that doesn’t mean that the concept of accountability isn’t flexible.

ABC News reported today that the person who was in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time the Tea Party was targeted is now head of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office. Oddly enough, she was not the one asked to resign.

The article reports:

Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.

Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.

As the House voted to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act Thursday evening, House Speaker John Boehner expressed “serious concerns” that the IRS is empowered as the law’s chief enforcer.

The IRS scandal has some rather subtle consequences. It vindicates those conservative organizations that were complaining about being targeting in 2010. It shows that Congress and the Inspector General were slow to respond to those complaints. But there is another aspect of this story that is interesting. The House of Representatives voted today to repeal ObamaCare. That is nothing new–they have been doing that pretty much on a regular basis. It won’t be repealed under this Congress–it would never pass the Senate, and even it it did, the Senate would not be able to override a Presidential veto. But there is a twist to this story. The IRS scandal is one that every American can relate to. As the scandal unfolds, the Republicans (assuming they have given up being the stupid party) will remind people that the IRS will be administering ObamaCare. After this scandal, that will be a scary prospect to many people. ObamaCare is not popular to begin with, it was passed with only Democrat votes–no Republicans voted for it, and the mid-term elections are a year and a half away. There will be more votes on the repeal of ObamaCare, and it will be interesting to see if any Democrats running for re-election change their votes.

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How To Avoid The Facts While Conducting An Investigation

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Carol Platt Liebau posted an article at Townhall.com yesterday about the Inspector General‘s report on the Internal Revenue‘s dealing with people and groups associated with conservatism. Ms. Liebau has one of those analytical minds that can sort through the fluff and get to the heart of the issue. Her article is amazing in the way it asks the questions no one investigating seemed to be interested in asking.

The article reports:

There’s nothing in there about the targeting of individuals, as I noted last night.

There’s nothing in there about who leaked documents to the media (which I wrote about here).

There’s nothing in there about how an Obama relection campaign chairman came to possess confidential information he used to attack Mitt Romney.

What the report reveals — more than anything else — is that it’s a starting point for some sharp inquiry by Congress, raising more questions than it answers.

These are two of the questions Ms. Liebau wants answered:

2. On page 3, the report notes that “During the 2012 election cycle, some members of Congress raised concerns about selective enforcement.”  What were these members told? What investigation had been done internally — and by whom — before members like Orrin Hatch were assured that their concerns were baseless? This goes to whether members of Congress were deliberately lied to — and by whom — and whether their concerns were even taken seriously in the first place.

3. Also on page 3, the report states that some members of Congress asked the IRS to investigate whether existing 501(c)(4)’s were engaged in improper campaign activity. In other words, some members were urging greater scrutiny of 501(c)(4)’s.  What members were these? Whom did they contact at the IRS? What were they told, and by whom? It would be interesting to know whether any former staffers of these members participated in the wrongdoing.  What’s more, if top officials were responsive to these requests, it might suggest where direction for the targeting came from.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is amazing how much paper you can use to say nothing and how many questions you can ask that do not lead in the direction of finding out the truth.

I am reaching a point where I think 99% of the people now in power in Washington should be voted out of office.

 

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What Is This All About And Does It Matter?

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As I view what is happening in Washington, the skeptic in me keeps remembering the scene in the Bill Murray movie “Meatballs” where the character Bill Murray plays leads the campers in a chant of “It just doesn’t matter.” I wish it did matter, but I just don’t think it does.

I have lost track of the scandals–I babysat grandchildren today and could not get my usual news fix. I know that there was a document dump of Benghazi-related documents today (hotair.com). I know that the acting IRS commissioner is leaving (the Daily Mail)–President Obama says that Steve Miller has been asked to resign–Steve Miller says that his assignment ends in early June. The Associated Press and had their phones bugged. At the same time conservative groups were being harassed by the IRS, President Obama’s half brother received tax-exempt status for the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed that operated illegally for years (the Daily Caller).

So where do we go from here? Impeachment is a really bad idea. It will not solve the problem and will probably create more problems. The press is quite capable of bringing down the presidency of any president they do not like–we are all human and make mistakes; and even if we don’t, mistakes can be manufactured. For example–the evidence President Bush cited to justify the war in Iraq was seen and evaluated by the Democrat leadership in Congress. When the Democrats voted for the war in Iraq, they knew everything President Bush knew–there was no way he could have lied to them. But that didn’t prevent cries of “Bush lied, people died.” When the media couldn’t get to Dick Cheney, they went after Scooter Libby. If President Obama were impeached, in the future the press would work very hard to bring down any administration they didn’t like. The will of the voters’ would be routinely undermined. Also, impeachment would further divide the country and create partisanship. Then again, there is the prospect of President Biden.

Impeachment is not the answer, so what is the answer? The answer lies with the voters. Voters need to become aware of what is going on and vote against anyone who is part of it or seems to be supporting it. The members of Congress that are blocking investigations should be voted out of office.  Those members of Congress who are defending the President and calling to end investigations need to be voted out of office–the investigations should end after they are finished and not before.

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What Has Happened To The Country I Love?

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Breitbart.com is reporting today that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) passed the confidential applications for tax-exempt status of nine conservative groups to the progressive group ProPublica.

The article reports:

The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year… In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)

These people make Richard Nixon look like an amateur.

The article further reports:

On Friday, the House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to hold a formal hearing on the IRS conservative targeting scandal. IRS Commissioner Steve Miller and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George are slated to testify.

At what point does someone other than the lower level employees take responsibility for these actions?

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Quote Of The Week

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From George Will at the Washington Post on May 13:

Jay Carney, whose unenviable job is not to explain but to explain away what his employers say, calls the IRS’s behavior “inappropriate.” No, using the salad fork for the entree is inappropriate. Using the Internal Revenue Service for political purposes is a criminal offense.

It’s An Old Story But We Are Just Now Hearing It

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There is a lot of information coming out today about the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeting conservatives for excessive scrutiny.  On Saturday, I posted an article which included some of the extra questions conservative groups were asked when they applied for their tax exemption status (rightwinggranny.com).  The use of the IRS and other groups to target political opponents is not new–the Clintons turned it into an art form. The Obamas have also learned to use it frequently.

In May of 2012, I posted an article about Intimidation of one Romney donor (rightwinggranny.com). Frank VanderSloot, the CEO of Melaleuca Inc.was subjected to the same kind of scrutiny that normally be reserved for a political candidate. Today’s Daily Caller details some of what Mr. Vandersloot was subjected to.

Fox News posted a story today showing how the initial interest of the IRS into the Tea Party Movement was expanded:

The article at Fox explains:

The internal IG timeline shows a unit in the agency was looking at Tea Party and “patriot” groups dating back to early 2010. But it shows that list of criteria drastically expanding by the time a June 2011 briefing was held. It then included groups focused on government spending, government debt, taxes, and education on ways to “make America a better place to live.” It even flagged groups whose file included criticism of “how the country is being run.” 

By early 2012, the criteria were updated to include organizations involved in “limiting/expanding government,” education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and social economic reform. 

I remember that when Barack Obama was elected, many people were complaining that we were about to enter Jimmy Carter’s second term. I don’t think that is right. I think Barack Obama has morphed into the third term of Richard Nixon.

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Sometimes Honesty Overrules Political Affiliation

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There are still some honest politicians left. Yes, you read that right. Evidently, Dennis Kucinich is one of them. It truly scares me that I am in agreement with Dennis Kucinich, but he was right on target on Fox News Sunday yesterday. Below are two videos of his statements on Benghazi and on the targeting of conservative political groups by the Internal Revenue Service:

It scares me that I am in agreement with a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat, but in this case, Dennis Kucinich is absolutely right!

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Politicizing The Internal Revenue Service

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Politicizing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is not a new or original idea. I am sure it has been done in the past in varying degrees, but the Obama Administration seems to have turned it into an art form. They have a slightly less obvious approach–not so much audits, but collecting information on political opponents.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday on some past abuses of the IRS by the Obama Administration.

The article at Power Line reports:

In August 2010, Austin Goolsbee, who directed Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board and later chaired his Council of Economic Advisers, gave a press briefing in which he discussed corporate income taxes. In that briefing, he suggested that he had access to confidential IRS data, and falsely accused the administration’s beta noire, Koch Industries, of not paying corporate income taxes.

The article goes on to give the exact quote. The obvious question asked in the Power Line article is, “How did an Obama Administration official obtain confidential IRS tax records?” It should also be noted here that the charges were false. The fact that the charges were false probably doesn’t matter–I am willing to bet that more people heard the false charges than heard that the charges were false.

The article at Power Line concludes:

UPDATE: Also, let’s not forget Obama’s joke, during the first days of his presidency, in a speech at Arizona State University:

I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. . . . President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.

At the time, most people thought he was kidding. But as Glenn Reynolds pointed out at the time, jokes about presidential abuse of power are not funny when they come from the president. With hindsight, more attention should have been paid.

Mary Katharine Ham posted an article at Hot Air yesterday showing exactly what questions organizations containing the words ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ were asked. The questions are quite revealing. The American Center for Law & Justice has handled lawsuits by a number of these organizations protesting their treatment, and the article at Hot Air lists specific questions their clients were asked:

IRS1

IRS2

IRS3

Please follow the link above to the Hot Air article to read further questions and compliance instructions. The blame for this has been put on some low-level IRS employees in Cincinnati. As someone who used to work for the government many years ago, I find it hard to believe that low-level employees would take this kind of initiative on their own. At any rate, I wondered why the questions asked didn’t include the political affiliation of the household pets of the boards of directors of the various organizations. It seems as if every other question was asked.

 

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It All Depends On How You Name Something

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There have been some negative comments lately from Democrats worried about how the implementation of ObamaCare will impact the 2014 mid-term elections. Historically, a President in his second term loses big in the mid-term elections, so the Democrats don’t want any additional difficulties. Recently a Democrat referred to ObamaCare as a ‘train wreck’ about to happen. That certainly does not improve the image of ObamaCare. Also, a lot of 26-year-olds are timing out of their parents’ health insurance and realizing that the IRS will be fining them if they do not pay the increased premiums ObamaCare requires from them. Keep in mind that increasing premiums on younger people is supposed to subsidize medical expenses for the elderly and for those with pre-existing health conditions.

Well, now it’s time for the goodwill tour for ObamaCare. Yesterday the Washington Examiner reported that as part of the Mother’s Day offensive for ObamaCare, President Obama has described ObamaCare as “largest health care tax cut for working families and small businesses in our history. “ Really. If you believe that, please call me about buying some waterfront property in Arizona–or maybe I could interest you in a bridge in New York.

The article reports:

His argument was a Hail-Mary effort to redesignate subsidies for individuals to purchase health insurance on government-run exchanges as a “tax cut.” But according to the Congressional Budget Office, these subsidies actually qualify as more than $1 trillion in “Exchange Subsidies and Related Spending.” (Emphasis mine.)

Far from being a historic tax cut, Obamacare actually qualifies as one of the largest tax increases in history. It contains roughly $1 trillion in taxes — on insurance plans, medical devices and investment income. And many of the taxes will end up falling on the middle class. The law’s individual mandate, which the Obama administration successful argued was a tax before the U.S. Supreme Court, is projected to hit nearly 5 million Americans with incomes less than $60,000 by 2016.

I understand that right now we have a lot of low-information voters who know more about American Idol than about what is going on in Washington. However, as these people begin to notice what is happening to their household budgets, maybe they will wake up and start paying attention. I can relate to the low-information voters–I used to be one. My excuse was not American Idol–my excuse was juggling family, work, etc. Either way, it’s time for America to wake up and begin to vote for people who will actually tell us the truth and practice fiscal restraint. I am sure that we have people in politics who are capable of that–I am just not sure how much power they have right now. We need to pay attention and vote accordingly.

 

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Unfortunately This Is Not A Surprise To Anyone Who Has Been Paying Attention

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The Associated Press is reporting today that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has apologized for targeting conservative groups during the 2012 election cycle to see if they were violating the rules of their non-profit status.

The article reports:

IRS agents singled out dozens of organizations for additional reviews because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their exemption applications, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups. In some cases, groups were asked for lists of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

I don’t like to accuse the Associated Press of bias, but the article makes a point of noting:

The agency — led at the time by a Bush administration appointee — blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.

The article reports that the excessive scrutiny on groups with the words ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in their name began with ‘low-level’ employees in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. Really? Then what do you suppose motivated them?

The article further reports:

“Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale,” the IRS said in a statement. “We fixed the situation last year and have made significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our system.”

“I don’t think there’s any question we were unfairly targeted,” said Tom Zawistowski, who until recently was president of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, an alliance of tea party groups in the state.

Zawistowski’s group was among many conservative organizations that battled the IRS over what they saw as discriminatory treatment. The group first applied for nonprofit status in June 2009, and it was finally granted on Dec. 7, 2012, he said — one month after Election Day.

This entire story is further proof that Chicago-style politics has truly come to Washington.

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What Americans Will Really Pay For Obamacare

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This article is based on three stories–one at Hot Air posted yesterday, one at the Wall Street Journal posted Thursday, and one posted at CNS News on Thursday. The bottom line on the Hot Air and CNS News stories is that the cheapest health care plan for a family under Obamacare will cost $20,000 per year. The bottom line on the Wall Street Journal story is that everything we were told about Obamacare by President Obama has turned out to be not true.

The Wall Street Journal article lists four major promises that have been broken in Obamacare:

1. Lower health-care costs

2. Smaller deficits

3. Preservation of existing insurance

4. Increased productivity

Please follow the link to the Wall Street Journal article to see the details of each broken promise.

The Obamacare insurance has different levels of plans. CNS News reports on the bronze plan–the lowest level. The article reports:

The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.

“The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000,” the regulation says.

Bronze will be the lowest tier health-insurance plan available under Obamacare–after Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Under the law, the penalty for not buying health insurance is supposed to be capped at either the annual average Bronze premium, 2.5 percent of taxable income, or $2,085.00 per family in 2016.

The article at Hot Air points out:

Using the conditions laid out in the regulations, the IRS calculates that a family earning $120,000 per year that did not buy insurance would need to pay a “penalty” (a word the IRS still uses despite the Supreme Court ruling that it is in fact a “tax”) of $2,400 in 2016.

The best that we can hope for is that Obamacare will collapse under its own weight and we can find a better way to help everyone get health insurance.

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Why Repealing ObamaCare Is Still A Good Idea

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As we approach the fiscal cliff and some of us realize that no matter what happens taxes on all Americans will be going up, we are forgetting what Obamacare is going to do to our taxes. Before I go into the details, I would like to remind everyone that the Medieval surfs only paid 10 percent of their crops to the lord of the manor. They were allowed to keep more of the fruit of their labor than Americans are currently keeping.

The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday listing some of the new taxes that will be imposed by Obamacare. The new ‘taxes on the rich’ are expected to average approximately $700 billion over 10 years.

The article lists some of these new taxes. Here are a few:

Upper-income households. Starting Jan. 1, individuals making more than $200,000 per year, and couples making more than $250,000 will face a 0.9 percent Medicare tax increase on wages above those threshold amounts. They’ll also face an additional 3.8 percent tax on investment income. Together these are the biggest tax increase in the health care law.

Employer penalties. Starting in 2014, companies with 50 or more employees that do not offer coverage will face penalties if at least one of their employees receives government-subsidized coverage. The penalty is $2,000 per employee, but a company’s first 30 workers don’t count toward the total.

Health care industries. Insurers, drug companies and medical device manufacturers face new fees and taxes. Companies that make medical equipment sold chiefly through doctors and hospitals, such as pacemakers, artificial hips and coronary stents, will pay a 2.3 percent excise tax on their sales, expected to total $1.7 billion in its first year, 2013. They’re trying to get it repealed.

The insurance industry faces an annual fee that starts at $8 billion in its first year, 2014.

The article also lists pharmaceutical companies, which are already paying fees; people who don’t have insurance, who will be fined; and people who use tanning salons. It is no wonder that the only gains in employment that have resulted from Obamacare are in the Internal Revenue Service.

The prospect of a fiscal cliff is looming right now. The prospect of a serious recession brought on by the taxes of Obamacare is also looming, but has somehow been lost in the shuffle. If America is to survive economically, we need a Congress who will deal with both in a way that is good for the country–not simply good for their re-election campaigns.

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Playing Numbers To Keep Americans In The Dark

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Breitbart.com reported yesterday that there is a plan being considered by the Obama Administration to keep American workers in the dark about the consequences of going over the ‘fiscal cliff.’ According to the article, the idea is that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will simply adjust the tax withholding tables so that Americans do not see the results of going over the cliff in their paychecks. Politically this might work for a short time, but practically, it could easily be a disaster.

The article reports:

This idea is being floated now. Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center, explained, “If we were to, say, go over the cliff and the rates go up, he could modify those withholding tables such that the average employee out there would not effectively see any more or less taken out of his paycheck.”

As Treasury Secretary, Geithner is responsible for setting withholding tables “most appropriate” in implementing tax law. Joseph Minarek, senior vice president and director of research at the Committee for Economic Development, said that Obama could use Geithner’s power as leverage in forcing Republicans to come to a deal on the fiscal cliff.

The article also points out that this strategy could result in a lot of angry taxpayers next April when they realize that they have to write checks to the IRS.

The article concludes:

But the Obama Administration knows that if the fiscal cliff is hit, other taxes, such as the alternative minimum tax, the estate tax and taxes on capital gains and dividends will rise precipitously, so they are considering the withholding plan as a way to fool the middle-class long enough so they forget who was responsible for raising their taxes.

It’s not about who is responsible for what–it is about what is best for America. It would be nice if more people in Washington understood that.

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Was Obamacare About Healthcare Or Taxes ?

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Reuters reported on Monday that the Internal Revenue Service has released new rules concerning dividends and capital gains as part of the 2010 healthcare law. The obvious questions here is, “What do dividends and capital gains have to do with healthcare?” Evidently more than we knew.

The article reports:

The tax affects only individuals with more than $200,000 in modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), and married couples filing jointly with more than $250,000 of MAGI.

The tax applies to a broad range of investment securities ranging from stocks and bonds to commodity securities and specialized derivatives.

The 159 pages of rules spell out when the tax applies to trusts and annuities, as well as to individual securities traders.

Released late on Friday, the new regulations include a 0.9 percent healthcare tax on wages for high-income individuals.

Please keep in mind that the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) was originally enacted to impact only the wealthy. As of 2011, a single person who made $48,450 was impacted by that tax. I really don’t consider $48,450 wealthy. How long will it be before the new healthcare taxes begin to impact the middle class?

The article further points out:

The IRS plans to release a new form for taxpayers to fill out for this tax when filing 2013 returns.

Oh joy.

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Another Side Effect Of ObamaCare

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Real Clear Politics posted an article today about the impact of ObamaCare on the full-time job market.

The article reports:

Just recently, the Internal Revenue Service issued an 18-page, single-spaced notice explaining how to distinguish between full-time and part-time workers under the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”). The difference matters, because the ACA requires employers with 50 or more full-time workers to provide health insurance for those workers. At the same time, no company has to buy insurance for part-time employees, defined as those working less than 30 hours a week.

I’ll go into the details of what that means in a minutes, but stop a minute and look at what just happened. A new law about healthcare is causing the Internal Revenue Service to issue a notice explaining full-time and part-time employment. I thought ObamaCare was about healthcare.

The part of ObamaCare that this IRS notice relates to will not kick in until after the election (surprised?).

The article reports on the impact:

Employers have a huge incentive to hold workers under the 30-hour weekly threshold. The requirement to provide insurance above that acts as a steep employment tax. Companies will try to minimize the tax. The most vulnerable workers are the poorest and least skilled who can be most easily replaced and for whom insurance costs loom largest. Indeed, the adjustment has already started.

Please follow the link to the Real Clear Politics article to read the details. This is a law that needs to be repealed.

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We’re Still Not Done With Solyndra

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On Wednesday, the Washington Times posted an article about the bankruptcy of Solyndra.

The article states:

The Internal Revenue Service urged a bankruptcy judge to reject solar panel maker Solyndra LLC’s bankruptcy plan Wednesday, saying it amounts to little more than an avenue for owners of an empty corporate shell to avoid paying taxes.

“The undeniable conclusion is that tax benefits drive this plan,” attorneys for the IRS wrote in a bankruptcy pleading.

The attorneys for the IRS stated that that the tax breaks would be worth more money than funds set aside for creditors.

The article explained the bankruptcy plan:

Under Solyndra’s reorganization plan, two big investors in the company, Madrone Partners LP and Argonaut Ventures, together would own nearly all of a shell company formed in the wake of Solyndra’s bankruptcy reorganization.

But the IRS said in court papers that there was little reason for the shell company to exist other than to help the owners avoid taxes. Argonaut is the investment arm of a family foundation headed by Oklahoma businessman George Kaiser, a fundraiser for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Madrone has ties to the family that owns Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

The article concludes:

The government attorneys said that while the reorganization plan had “some marginal benefits,” there was no doubt that the most important priority was to “preserve a shell corporation to be able to reduce future tax liabilities by hundreds of millions of dollars.”

This is what crony capitalism looks like.

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What In The World Are We Thinking ?

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Bill Clinton’s relationship with the truth has not changed since the 1990′s. Breitbart.com posted a video of Bill Clinton on CNN yesterday explaining that the American people are easily confused by plans of lower taxes and lower spending. In the video he cited a few facts that were simply not true. See the numbers below taken from the National Taxpayers Union to see who actually pays income taxes in America.

Who Pays Income Taxes and How Much? 

                                Tax Year 2009
 
Percentiles Ranked by AGI AGI Threshold on Percentiles Percentage of Federal Personal Income Tax Paid
Top 1% $343,927 36.73
Top 5% $154,643 58.66
Top 10% $112,124 70.47
Top 25% $66,193 87.3
Top 50% $32,396 97.75
Bottom 50% <$32,396 2.25
Note: AGI is Adjusted Gross Income
Source: Internal Revenue Service

Lower taxes and smaller government allow the private sector to grow. There is nothing confusing about that, and the American people are not confused. We are reaching the point where more people are taking money out of government that are putting money in. At that point the system totally breaks down and America as we have known it disappears. This election may be our last chance to prevent that.

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Some Common Sense Applied To Government

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Fox News reported yesterday that a bill has passed the House of Representative which would fire federal employees who have not paid their income taxes.

The article reports:

It passed by a vote of 263 to 114 and will be sent to the Senate.

The article further states:

Those on a plan to repay back taxes or in negotiations with the IRS would be exempt from the proposed change. IRS employees already can be terminated for non-payment of federal income taxes.

In April 2011, the bill was passed out of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, of which Chaffetz is a member.

The bill would include those seeking federal contracts and grants, but exempts uniformed military personnel. In addition, federal agencies would be required to give 60 days notice before taking personnel action.

Current IRS data shows that 100,000 civilian government employees owed $1 billion in unpaid federal income taxes in 2009. Rather than raise taxes on everyone, shouldn’t we be concerned about collecting taxes already in existence from those who owe them?

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The Amazing Wisdom Of The Internal Revenue Service

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Commentary Magazine posted an article yesterday about the children of New York art dealer Ileana Sonnabend. Mrs. Sonnabend died in 2007.  The children inherited a fabulous collection of modern art valued at $1 billion.

The article reports:

Her children have already paid $471 million in estate taxes on the collection, being forced to sell off most of it to meet the bill.

The story continues:

But there is one item in the collection, a work by Robert Rauschenberg that cannot be sold. It contains a stuffed bald eagle and under the terms of the 1940 Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and the 1918 Migratory Bird Act, it is a felony to “possess, sell, purchase, barter, transport, import or export any bald eagle — alive or dead.” The estate, advised by three experts, including one from Christie’s, therefore, valued the work at zero. The IRS decided it was worth $65 million, and is demanding $29.2 million in taxes and $11 million in penalties because the heirs “inaccurately” stated its value.

The question here is very simple–if they cannot legally sell the article, what is its value? The article points out that the value of anything is only what someone is willing to pay for it. In this case, the article cannot be legally sold, so it has no value. However, that didn’t stop the IRS!

The article concludes:

The IRS has an “Art Advisory Panel,” that provides expert advice on the value of art works involved in estates. It was the panel that decided it was worth $65 million. Stephanie Barron, a member of the panel and an art curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, said that, “It’s a stunning work of art and we all just cringed at the idea of saying that this had zero value. It just didn’t make any sense.”

It makes perfect sense and Ms. Barron’s statement is a classic example of the fallacy of the just price, that things have inherent value independent of the marketplace. They may have artistic value, emotional value, religious value, etc. But if they cannot be sold then they have no monetary value because they cannot be converted into money.

The IRS Art Advisory Board, I assume, is made up of art experts. It should add an economist to give the other board members a lesson in economics 101 when necessary. And the IRS should have someone empowered to tell the Bureau, “Are you crazy? This will make us look like idiots, and vindictive idiots at that.”

Keep in mind that the IRS is the main government agency involved in implementing Obamacare.