Tag Archives: The Internal Revenue Service (IRS)

Some Of The Spending Cuts Are Obvious

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On Wednesday, The Epoch Times posted an article about some of the federal budget cuts that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could investigate.

The article reports:

In a letter sent on Monday to DOGE advisors Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) outlined her “instruction manual” of ways to eliminate government waste.

“With $3 billion of interest being added to our national debt every day, the longer we delay tackling the problem, the further away the finish line gets,” Ernst wrote in the letter. “To give you a head start, here are a trillion dollars’ worth of ideas for trimming the fat and reducing red ink.”

Ernst pointed out that the cost of maintaining and leasing government buildings costs $8 billion every year.

She noted that the federal workforce still works remotely and “not a single headquarters of a major government agency or department in the nation’s capital is even half full.”

Ernst targeted the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in her blueprint of cost-cutting targets. She cited her audit of the tax collection agency which revealed that 5,800 employees and contractors owe nearly $50 million themselves.

The lawmaker also called for the DOGE to act as the “Grinch” on the government’s end-of-year “use it or lose it” spending spree which she called “Christmas in September.” The senator said that Sept. 20 every year marks the deadline for the federal government to spend money left over at the end of a fiscal year.

Part of the problem is baseline budgeting–your budget for next year starts with this year’s spending as the bottom line–thus the rush to spend all of your budget. Therefore, if you ask for a 10 percent increase and only get a 5 percent increase, you can say that you budget was cut 5 percent even though your budget grew. It’s very similar to the wife who goes shopping, spends $300, and tells her husband she saved $100.

There is hope that we will finally see government spending cut in the upcoming Trump administration.

IRS Audits For Thee, But Not For Me

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On Friday, The Federalist posted an article about how the extra money given to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the last budget passed by Congress is being used.

The article reports:

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is using a new army of tax collectors to conduct mass audits of middle-income earners after Democrats promised additional resources would only be used to target the rich.

On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., celebrated the federal government’s collection of more than $1 billion in taxes from “high-wealth taxpayers” as a triumph for the agency’s radical expansion under President Joe Biden.

…A columnist for the paper trumpeted by Warren, however, pointed out that “Buried deep in the same story: Two-thirds of IRS audits initiated last year were on taxpayers making less than $200,000.”

The article notes:

“It should also be noted that nearly two-thirds of audits initiated in 2023 were on those making less than $200,000,” Brady told the paper.

In April, The Wall Street Journal editorial board reported on a review of the federal tax agency’s auditing practices, which found 63 percent of new government inquiries were to middle-income earners who made less than $200,000.

“Only a small overall share reached the very highest earners, while 80% of audits covered filers earning less than $1 million,” wrote the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. “Don’t forget to save those charitable-giving receipts.”

It has been reported that nearly half of American Congress members are millionaires. Why would the people who write the laws write them so that their activities would be closely watched?

The Government’s Misplace Priorities

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On Friday, The Epoch Times posted an article about some changes being made to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The article reports:

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) intends to raise its enforcement personnel by 40 percent by the end of this fiscal year, with revenue agents seeing the largest workforce increase.

For fiscal year 2024, the IRS plans to boost enforcement staff by a net 5,462 employees, according to a Jan. 29 report by IRS watchdog Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). This would take the total number of enforcement personnel at the tax agency to 18,960 by the end of fiscal 2024, which is 40 percent higher than the staffing at the beginning of October 2023.

Out of the 5,462 net additions, 4,704 will be revenue agents who are tasked with conducting “face-to-face audits of more complex returns.”

The tax agency intends to add a net 493 special agents for the year, who are armed officials investigating “potential criminal activities.” Staffing of revenue officers will rise by 265 employees. Revenue officers are tasked with collecting delinquent taxes and securing delinquent returns.

First of all, I do not believe that IRS agents should be armed. Secondly, the idea of an apolitical IRS went out the window when Lois Lerner decided to target conservative groups to delay their 501c3 tax status requests.

The article notes:

By fiscal 2024-end, revenue agents will comprise close to 70 percent of the enforcement personnel. Armed special agents will make up 13.5 percent and revenue officers will account for 16.4 percent.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provided the IRS with $79.4 billion in supplemental funding that is available for the agency until September 2031. By the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2023, the agency had used $3.5 billion of the funds.

As long as we are arming federal employees, let’s send them to our southern border to enforce our immigration laws.

Do We Have Any Idea Who The Federal Government Is Working For?

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In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln stated, “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (source here). Currently it seems as if government of the people, by the people, for the people has been replaced by government of the ruling class, for the interests of the ruling class, and only for the ruling class. There is a lot of money floating around Washington, D.C., and I am sure there are a lot of skeletons in the closet in Washington, D.C., that many politicians don’t ever want to see the light of day. So when someone is actually held accountable or not held accountable, there are probably more reasons behind it than we will ever know. However, recently it seems as if a lot of chickens are coming home to roost.

On Thursday, The Washington Examiner reported the following:

A third IRS official confirmed that Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss faced roadblocks when attempting to bring charges against Hunter Biden, contradicting denials issued Wednesday by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

IRS Director of Field Operations Michael Batdorf told the House Ways and Means Committee in a closed-door interview on Sept. 12 that he felt “frustrated” by the refusal of the Justice Department to approve tax charges that IRS agents viewed as well-supported by evidence, according to a transcript of the interview obtained by the Washington Examiner.

He also said the IRS removed agent Gary Shapley, a whistleblower, from the Hunter Biden case at the direction of Weiss despite having done nothing wrong.

Batdorf’s testimony was the latest piece of evidence to suggest Weiss did not enjoy the unfettered authority to pursue Hunter Biden that Garland and others claimed he had.

In July, The Federalist reported:

Shapley said U.S. Delaware Attorney David Weiss waited out the statute of limitations related to 2014-2015 financial crimes allowing the president’s son to evade additional charges. In June, news broke of a plea deal struck between Weiss and Hunter Biden limited to two misdemeanor tax crimes and a single felony charge over illegal firearm possession. The latter is forgiven after 24 months of sobriety, an agreement placed in jeopardy if the mysterious White House cocaine was linked to the first family’s son, who wrote a book on his struggle with drug addiction.

“In November of 2022, the statute of limitations was set to expire for the 2014 and 2015 charges in D.C., which included the 2014 felonies for the attempt to evade or defeat tax and fraud or false statement regarding Burisma income earned by Hunter Biden,” Shapley said.

Hunter Biden served on the board of the Ukrainian energy company raking in excess compensation despite having no prior experience in the industry.

“The statute of limitations had been extended through a tolling agreement with Hunter Biden’s defense counsel, and they were willing to extend it past 2022. Weiss allowed those to expire,” said Shapley.

It would be nice if Hunter Biden and those who let the statute of limitations run out on Hunter Biden’s crimes were held accountable for their actions.

The Department Of Injustice

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On Tuesday, Just the News posted an article about the testimony of a retired FBI supervisor regarding the irregularities in the investigation of Hunter Biden.

The article reports:

A retired FBI supervisor’s account to Congress of how the bureau tipped off Joe Biden’s team in December 2020 about plans to conduct a surprise interview of his son Hunter not only corroborates a key allegation from two IRS whistleblowers, it further paints a portrait of unusual meddling into the investigation of the first family’s overseas business dealings and taxes.

From search warrants denied to critical evidence kept from the investigative team, three experienced federal law enforcement agents have now offered Congress significant testimony and proof that the Hunter Biden probe did not follow FBI or IRS norms and left veteran investigators as well as the powerful House chairman seeing political favoritism and undue interference.

“The Justice Department’s efforts to cover up for the Bidens reveals a two-tiered system of justice that sickens the American people,” House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said Monday night after releasing a summary of the FBI supervisory agent’s account.

Comer’s counterpart on the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, dropped a bombshell of his own Monday, saying the FBI has “materially” impacted Congress’ efforts to unmask the weaponization of law enforcement by refusing to turn over evidence and that Director Christopher Wray could be held in contempt as early as next week.

The retired FBI agent, a new witness for Congress, gave his account to Comer’s panel in a transcribed interview Monday, corroborating several aspects of the account IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley and a second agent gave Congress last month.

The swamp in Washington is deep and wide. I can’t help but think that there are two things in play here–wait for the statute of limitations to run out or hope that the Republicans lose their majority in the House of Representatives in 2024. At any rate, I do question whether there will be any accountability for the millions the Biden have received for their influence peddling.

Beware Of The IRS Trying To Give You Money

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On July 3rd, The Epoch Times posted an article about a new scam to separate Americans from their money.

The article reports:

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a warning to taxpayers about a new scam mail scheme that attempts to trick people into believing the government owes them money.

“The new scheme involves a mailing coming in a cardboard envelope from a delivery service,” the IRS said in a statement on July 3.

Inside the cardboard envelope is a letter on IRS masthead while fraudulently claiming that the notice is “in relation to your unclaimed refund.”

While dangling the prospect of obtaining unclaimed tax refund dollars, the letter asks taxpayers to provide sensitive personal information, including detailed photographs of drivers’ licenses. The data that the scammers are trying to obtain can be used by thieves to try and obtain a tax refund or other sensitive financial information.

“This is just the latest in the long string of attempts by identity thieves posing as the IRS in hopes of tricking people into providing valuable personal information to steal identities and money, including tax refunds,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a statement.

The article gives guidelines for identifying the scam:

The scam letter includes a variety of warning signs, including strange punctuation and a mixture of different fonts, with some requests being awkwardly worded, such as: “A Clear Phone of Your Driver’s License That Clearly Displays All Four (4) Angles, Taken in a Place with Good Lighting.”

The fraudulent notification then asks for additional information that is sensitive, with the wording of the request also awkward.

“You’ll Need to Get This to Get Your Refunds After Filing. These Must Be Given to a Filing Agent Who Will Help You Submit Your Unclaimed Property Claim. Once You Send All The Information Please Try to Be Checking Your Email for Response From The Agents Thanks,” the letter reads, per the IRS.

The letter also includes some inaccurate information. Specifically, it claims that the deadline for filing tax refunds for those who have an extension to file is Oct. 17, 2023, while the correct deadline is actually Oct. 16.

“These scams can come in through email, text or even in special mailings. People should be careful to watch out for red flags that clearly mark these as IRS scams,” Werfel said.

The thing that is so annoying about some of the current scams is that the people doing them are probably smart enough to make an honest living but have chosen to attempt to cheat people instead. That’s sad.

Living In A Really Bad B Movie

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For what it is worth, I believe that the Democrat plan is to remove President Biden from office some time before the end of summer and put their preferred 2024 candidate in as Vice-President. The deep state has played this game before. That is how the Republicans got President Ford. I have no idea what the details of the plan are, but I feel as if we are trapped in a really bad B-Movie that is being totally orchestrated behind the scenes.

On Wednesday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported the following:

IRS whistleblower says he was STOPPED from pursuing leads into ‘big guy’ Joe in the Hunter investigation

  • IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley claimed Hunter did receive special treatment 
  • Said he was prevented from taking routine steps in probe into president’s son
  • House Republicans released more WhatsApp messages Tuesday between Hunter Biden and a Chinese business associate

All of the information we are hearing now about the millions of dollars flowing into the Biden family from overseas is not new. I am sure Washington insiders have been aware of it for decades. It was kept quiet in order to elect Joe Biden to carry out President Obama’s third term. Hillary Clinton was supposed to do that, but the vote manipulators underestimated the popularity of President Trump.

There is a quote that has never been denied that is in a book written by Donna Brazile.

This is the quote from election night 2016:

According to Bill Still’s source — an unnamed “NBC associate producer of the forum” — Hillary was so enraged that, after the forum, she went into a ballistic melt-down, screaming at her staff, including a racist rant at Donna Brazile, calling Brazile a “buffalo” and “janitor”. Brazile recently turned against Hillary — now we know why.

…She screamed she’d get that f**king Lauer fired for this. Referring to Donald Trump, Clinton said, ‘If that f**king b***ard wins, we all hang from nooses! Lauer’s finished, and if I lose, it’s all on your heads for screwing this up.’

You don’t generally hang from a noose after you lose an election (at least no so far in America). What did she mean by that, and isn’t it time someone looked into it?

The War Against Americans

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On Wednesday, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at American Greatness detailing how the political left has escalated the war on everyday Americans. The article cites numerous examples.

The article notes:

Special-counsel John Durham just issued his final report on wrongdoing within the FBI, CIA, and the Department of Justice. 

The summary confirms that our premier investigatory and intelligence agencies interfered in the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. 

Directors and high-ranking FBI officials lied under oath. They misled Congress. They altered court documents and deceived federal judges. 

…The FBI contracted Twitter to suppress news stories. It kept the Hunter Biden laptop under wraps, even as former intelligence officials flat out lied it was likely “Russian disinformation.” That was a blatant effort to aid the 2020 Biden campaign.

The IRS just conceded whistleblowers were correct and the agency fired its entire multiyear audit team responsible for investigating Hunter Biden’s purported tax irregularities. 

The agency claimed it was ordered to do so by the Department of Justice, headed by Biden’s appointee Merrick Garland.

California is facing a crushing $32 billion deficit. Yet it flirts with an $800 billion-dollar “reparations” payout to the state’s black residents. 

…Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis—all outside Florida—have the highest black murder rates in the nation. 

Florida in contrast, with a black population of 3.3 million, has the second largest number of black businesses in the nation. The chairman of the NAACP’s board of directors is himself a Florida resident! 

Black Lives Matter has just announced it lost millions of dollars in investments and ran up huge deficits. 

The culprit was its former corrupt leadership. 

The article also notes:

In almost every American city and town, biological males, with enormous advantages in size and musculoskeletal mass, routinely win women’s sporting competitions. 

They are systematically destroying decades of progress that sought to ensure parity between men and women’s sports. 

Corporate America has joined this cultural revolution hysteria. Companies are apparently now hellbent on destroying their brands, profits, and net worth.

Under pressure from the LGBTQ activists, the Los Angeles Dodgers reinvited the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” to celebrate Pride night at Dodger Stadium. 

Catholics and Christians had objected to the invitation because the group’s notoriety hinges on its sexualized and often pornographic mockery of Catholic ritual, the Holy Trinity, and Christian faith. 

The supposedly courageous group would never dare extend its street-theater blasphemy to other religious groups such as Muslims or Hindus. 

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. As Americans, we have been asleep, and we are paying a price for it. No one involved in the government interference in the past two presidential elections is sitting in jail. Meanwhile, people who simply walked through the Capitol on January 6th have not yet had their day in court. We are losing our nation.

Passing The Buck

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On Wednesday, Breitbart posted an article about the claim by IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel that the Department of Justice made the decision to purge an IRS whistleblower from the DOJ’s probe into Hunter Biden. I doubt we will ever know the truth about what actually happened in this instance, but it makes for an interesting story.

The article reports:

IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel told Congress the Justice Department (DOJ) made the decision to purge an IRS whistleblower from the DOJ’s probe into Hunter Biden, according to a letter sent to House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO).

Werfel’s letter on May 17 responded to Smith’s May 16 inquiry about concerns that a high-ranking IRS agent faced retaliation for raising red flags about alleged political interference in the tax probe of Hunter Biden.

Werfel said the decision to remove a whistleblower from the tax investigation was at the DOJ’s direction, confirming what a second IRS whistleblower alleged Monday.

The article concludes:

The new whistleblower claimed leadership excluded his team from the case after it learned of “longstanding concerns” about the handling of the probe. The concerns allegedly angered a redacted “U.S. Attorney for the District…”

David Weiss, U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, a Trump administration appointee, is the lead prosecutor in the case.

The whistleblower also alleged the DOJ and the U.S. Attorney’s office are responsible for his team’s removal from the probe.

In March, Garland told Congress that Weiss has the autonomy to recommend changes. Yet Biden’s attorney general also admitted he has the sole authority to sign off on the charges.

Even in a case as obvious as Hunter Biden and his laptop, the people who are supposed to enforce the law are not doing their job. The current level of corruption at all levels of our government is stunning.

I Guess They Haven’t Learned Their Lesson

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Obviously, the big news today is the release of the Durham Report. Unfortunately there will be no consequences for those who violated the law, but at least we now have the proof that they did. However, the FBI and the Justice Department do not seem to learn from experience that they are not supposed to be political.

On Monday, The New York Post reported:

The IRS on Monday removed the “entire investigative team” from its long-running tax fraud probe of first son Hunter Biden in alleged retaliation against the whistleblower who recently contacted Congress to allege a cover-up in the case, The Post has learned.

The purge allegedly was done on the orders of the Justice Department, the whistleblower’s attorneys informed congressional leaders in a letter.

“Today the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Supervisory Special Agent we represent was informed that he and his entire investigative team are being removed from the ongoing and sensitive investigation of the high-profile, controversial subject about which our client sought to make whistleblower disclosures to Congress. He was informed the change was at the request of the Department of Justice,” Mark Lytle and Tristan Leavitt wrote.

The whistleblower, who supervised the Hunter Biden probe since early 2020, hasn’t publicly identified the first son as the subject of the case that he says is being brushed under the rug, but congressional sources confirmed it.

The article concludes:

The federal investigation reportedly has looked at whether Hunter laundered money, violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and lied about his drug use on a gun purchase form. 

House Republicans, meanwhile, are investigating President Biden’s role in his family’s overseas dealings, through which Hunter Biden and first brother James Biden earned millions from partnerships with wealthy people in countries where their powerful relative held sway.

Joe Biden met with his relatives’ business associates on many occasions — including those from China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine — and House Republicans allege that Biden family members offered no legitimate business services and were merely selling access to the US government.

I am waiting for someone to explain to me how the lifestyle of some of our ‘representatives’ matches up with their salaries. That alone would justify investigations into many of the people in Washington.

Does This Bother Anyone Else?

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On Tuesday, The New York Post reported that the Internal Revenue Service has spent more than $5 million shoring up its arsenal for its increasingly militarized agents. What?

The article reports:

A new report shows the Internal Revenue Service has been stocking up on weapons, ammunition and combat gear to the tune of $10 million since 2020. 

The findings released last week by OpenTheBooks, a watchdog group that tracks government spending, reveal that in 2021 alone the IRS spent more than $5 million shoring up its arsenal for its increasingly militarized agents. 

Since 2020, the oversight group found, the IRS has spent $2.3 million on ammunition, $1.2 million on ballistic shields, $474,000 on Smith & Wesson rifles, $463,000 on Beretta 1301 tactical shotguns and $243,000 on body armor vests.

A slew of other line-item expenditures – include a mysterious $1.3 million spent on “various other gear for criminal investigation agents.”

Actually I think the IRS was scary enough without being armed. We went through an audit many years ago after I made a donation to the Tea Party. They audited our charitable contributions. We sent them all the records, they delayed their conclusion twice before finding nothing wrong, and then informed us that the case wasn’t actually closed. It was basically an intimidation tactic. I really don’t think they need to be armed.

The article also notes:

The IRS is also in the midst of a hiring spree, with current openings to hire 360 criminal investigators based in all 50 states. 

The agency notes that applicants must be willing to “carry a firearm; must be prepared to protect him/herself or others from physical attacks at any time and without warning and use firearms in life-threatening situations; must be willing to use force up to and including the use of deadly force.”

The IRS has said that its special agents are armed because they consistently are involved in organized crime, drug and gang investigations. 

President Biden provided the agency with more than $80 billion in new funding as part of the $739 billion Inflation Reduction Act he signed in August.

The IRS argument does not hold up–we have law enforcement agencies that can deal with organized crime, drug and gang investigations. The purpose of the IRS is to collect taxes. I don’t know enough about a flat tax to support it, but it may actually be time to abolish the IRS if they are going to become a bunch of armed bullies.

The Government Giveth And The Government Taketh Away

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On Friday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced Friday that it would propose rules that would make it more difficult for a number of new electric vehicles (EVs) to qualify for tax breaks, according to a news release.

Starting April 18, the IRS will enforce a domestic sourcing requirement for minerals and components used in EV batteries, the agency said. Analysts say that a number of new EVs won’t qualify for a clean vehicle tax credit of $7,500 that was implemented under the Inflation Reduction Act that was passed last year.

…To qualify under the new rules, the IRS said that an EV must have a battery capacity of at least 7 kilowatt hours, have a gross vehicle weight of fewer than 14,000 pounds, be “made by a qualified manufacturer,” and those vehicles have to go through a final assembly in North America. The vehicle also has to be new and the seller has to report “your name and taxpayer identification number to the IRS for you to be eligible to claim the credit,” the release said.

It also said there are price and income caps, including $55,000 for sedans as well as $80,000 for trucks, vans, and SUVs. A list of EV manufacturers was placed on the IRS website.

The article concludes:

John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, told the outlet that he believes only few of the 90 or so electric vehicles that are on sale in the United States will be eligible for the tax credit starting next month.

“Some EVs will certainly qualify for a partial credit. Given the constraints of the legislation, Treasury’s done as well as it could to produce rules that meet the statute and reflect the current market,” he warned to Reuters.

How many of us can afford to pay upwards of $55,000 for a vehicle? What is behind this push for electric vehicles and the gradual phasing out of gasoline-powered vehicles? The automobile is a major part of American life.

According to House Grail:

In 2017, the average US household owned 1.88 cars. The average US household consisted of 2.54 people which means the average American owns 0.74 cars, although this includes children that would have been too young to drive.

If approximately 75% of the population are old enough to drive, then the driving population owns 0.99 of a car each, on average.

What would be the impact of ending the sale of cars with gasoline engines and replacing them with cars the average American cannot afford? The impact would be the loss of individual freedom. Trips to the grocery store to pick up one or two items would be a thing of the past. Trips would have to be carefully planned. How often would families be able to get together? The family is the building block of our society, what happens when family dinners on holidays are no longer possible?

The push for electric cars is a sham. It is a reach for further government control and less freedom for Americans. Putting cars out of the financial reach of average Americans is not a good idea.