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Thread: Abuse of IRS Power - Page 5







Post#101 at 05-24-2013 01:02 PM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,505]
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Quote Originally Posted by Weave View Post
Unlike you, most of us aren't living on Daddy's trustfund in Manhatten. We have to actually work for a living in the real world.
Unlike you, liberals don't need to resort to personal attacks in order to make their points, because the points stand on their own.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#102 at 05-24-2013 01:11 PM by Weave [at joined Feb 2010 #posts 909]
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Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
Unlike you, liberals don't need to resort to personal attacks in order to make their points, because the points stand on their own.
Bwahahahah yeah because Playwrong never engages in personal attacks...







Post#103 at 05-24-2013 03:13 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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Quote Originally Posted by Weave View Post
Unlike you, most of us aren't living on Daddy's trustfund in Manhatten. We have to actually work for a living in the real world.
Give me one shred of evidence that is true, liar.

On the other hand, I got plenty of evidence here that you are an idiot. And that is not a personal attack; just the truth backed by evidence you have provided in writing.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#104 at 05-24-2013 03:30 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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The real truth of it

- and why Progressives should be using this faux scandal to facilitate real change -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rss_ezra-klein

..Take 501(c)(4)s. There's little evidence that the IRS agents in Cincinnati saw themselves as foot soldiers in a political war. Rather, it looks like the war — in the form of groups seeking tax-exempt status for their political activities under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code — came to their sleepy backwater. Overwhelmed, the staff began making bad decisions and applying ill-conceived filters that politicized the process.

The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision enabled 501(c)(4) groups to be commandeered for unlimited political spending. Republican consultant Karl Rove, unions and other big players tested IRS rules restricting how politically engaged 501(c)(4) groups could be. They found they were able to use the groups almost exclusively for political purposes without inviting IRS scrutiny. Soon, the IRS's Determinations Unit in Cincinnati, which processes 501(c)(4) applications, was inundated.

The emergence of so many 501(c)(4)s devoted to politics led to news reports suggesting — correctly — that the IRS wasn't enforcing the rules restricting the groups' political engagement. According to the IRS inspector general's report, the news stories prompted agents in the Determinations Unit to begin filtering 501(c)(4) applications for political agendas. Those filters tilted — unfairly but not necessarily malevolently — against conservative groups using politically tinged words such as "tea party."

For that, heads should roll at the Cincinnati office. The consequences for politicizing the agency's reviews should be severe, even if the politicization turns out to have been inadvertent. Incompetence that leads to a national scandal and a severe drop of trust in your institution should be a firing offense.

The IRS is no longer targeting groups, but the underlying problem remains; as Sen. Max Baucus of Montana put it, "a Mack truck is being driven through the 501(c)(4) loophole." Political groups are still streaming into a tax-exempt designation that was never intended for them, leaving the IRS to make subjective judgments about which groups are too political to warrant that status and which are not.

Disclose Act

Although the dangers are obvious, the odds of reform are slim. Republicans like the status quo. In 2012, Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island sponsored the Disclose Act, which would have required such groups to disclose donors who had contributed more than $10,000 and to list their top five donors in their campaign ads. By eliminating anonymity for donors, the legislation would have made these groups less attractive vehicles for partisan politics. The Disclose Act was killed by Republican filibuster.

Republicans want to prosecute the IRS scandal, but they've offered no remedies for the murky campaign finance rules at the root of it. Why? Because they're not actually upset about the underlying problem; those rules helped Republicans raise hundreds of millions in 2012.
.... and you thought this was about some green eye shade dudes working in cubicles in Cincinnati. Silly you!
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#105 at 05-24-2013 06:28 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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This is good:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sh...-non-profit-le

Leno: GOP Should Repeal ObamaCare By Naming it Conservative Non-Profit and Letting IRS Take it Down

Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
The question was not whether the IRS did something wrong.

The question is did they do more to conservative groups than they did to others...
-This is what the IRS admitted [emphasis on the word ADMITTED]:

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/irs-s...0#.UZz3h1Qo7cs

...Things started brewing earlier this month when Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington first admitted conservative groups were targeted for extra scrutiny by tax bureaucrats in Ohio's Queen City...


...case closed, except for Playwrong.

Weave pointed this out wrt Playdude:

Quote Originally Posted by Weave View Post
Unlike you, most of us aren't living on Daddy's trustfund in Manhatten. We have to actually work for a living in the real world.
...using his most clever debating technique, PW objected:

Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
Give me one shred of evidence that is true, liar...
...the best shred of evidence comes from, well:

Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
...I'm only one branch of 'da family' tree and not one of the controlling ones; I'm sure just one of their trusts could buy your entire t-park regardless of size so don't fret for us too much...
...normally, I'd say PW has been caught in so many whoppers that I'd discount it (ask me, I'll find them), but who in the world would make up being a trust fund baby?

Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
Unlike you, liberals don't need to resort to personal attacks in order to make their points, because the points stand on their own.
-You are delusional, aren't you, Eric?

Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
- and why Progressives should be using this faux scandal to facilitate real change -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rss_ezra-klein
-Yes. PW wants to distract us from the fact that Obama's IRS did something illegal with the fact that a whole lot of people did something which wasn't illegal.







Post#106 at 05-25-2013 04:09 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
-This is what the IRS admitted [emphasis on the word ADMITTED]:
No, stupid, that is an ABC News report.

Again, here is what the IRS IG Report actually said -

Of the nearly 300 groups that received extra scrutiny, about one-third were selected because of their conservative name. According to the inspector general’s report, the IRS flagged 72 “tea party” groups, 11 “9/12″ groups and 13 “patriots” groups for additional review. The IRS flagged an additional 202 groups, which the report classified as “other.” The ideology of these 202 groups is unclear.
.

And again, here is what the head of the IRS, under oath to a hostile Congressional committee, sitting next to the IRS IG who conducted the investigation said (note - he's a lawyer so he understands the consequences of lying) -

Rep. Peter Roskam, R-IL: "How come only conservative groups got snagged?"

Outgoing acting IRS commissioner Steve Miller: "They didn't sir. Organizations of all walks and all persuasions were pulled in. That’s shown by the fact that only 70 of the 300 organizations were tea party organizations, of the ones that were looked at by TIGTA [Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration]."
This is the third time that I've given you the primary information source and you once again respond with a secondary information source (if you don't know what that means, I can explain it to you). You really are dumber that even I thought you were - it is amazing what blind ideology can do to someone's brain capacity!


Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
...the best shred of evidence comes from, well:
I'm actually a voting board member now (thanks!) but that doesn't mean I now miraculously benefit from it financially. I realize a guy living in a trailer park somewhere Butthole USA isn't likely to ever understand these things; maybe it's time you came to that realization yourself. Maybe start thinking about trying to better your own life through your own efforts than spending your time trying to tear everyone else down - you still got about 15 years before that govt pension teat kicks in.

Yea, that'll happen when pigs fly - hey, that reminds me, how is your Shaky-Puttin doing these days, did she ever forgive you?



Just don't forget you can loss half that govt pension teat to an ex.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#107 at 05-28-2013 01:56 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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[
Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
... Again, here is what the IRS IG Report actually said - .

And again, here is what the head of the IRS, under oath to a hostile Congressional committee, sitting next to the IRS IG who conducted the investigation said...
...PW seems to overlook the specific criteria which the IRS has admitted to, and that "progressive groups were allowed free ride:
Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...-hold/2159983/

...In the 27 months that the Internal Revenue Service put a hold on all Tea Party applications for non-profit status, it approved applications from similar liberal groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows...

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/14/ir...thers-charity/

Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years...

...The National Legal and Policy Center filed an official complaint with the IRS in May 2011 asking why the foundation was being allowed to solicit tax-deductible contributions when it had not even applied for an IRS determination... Nevertheless, a month later, the Barack H. Obama Foundation had flown through the grueling application process. Lerner granted the organization a 501(c) determination and even gave it a retroactive tax exemption dating back to December 2008...

I wonder how long he'll keep denying the obvious? When more whistleblowers and flipped witnesses testify?
----


Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/irs-s...0#.UZz3h1Qo7cs

...Things started brewing earlier this month when Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington first admitted conservative groups were targeted for extra scrutiny by tax bureaucrats in Ohio's Queen City...







Post#108 at 05-28-2013 02:58 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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Yawn.

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
...USA Today and Daily Caller....blah, blah, blah
Again, you're just linking to a second-rate newspaper and a second-rate blog.

I've provide the actual IRS IG Report and the former head of the IRS testimony in front of Congress.

Only an idiot, such as your self, would continue to post as if those things are equivalent.

Basically, this is now only of interest to the 23% of voters, such as yourself, that are idiot t-baggers and to mainstream GOP 'leaders' to flog to try to get their base sheeple out to vote in the mid-terms. The problem is everyone else now sees it for what it really is - a desperate partisan attempt on the Right to pin something, anything to Obama. Outside of Faux News, it's not in the media much anymore; on the Sunday talk shows, it took a backseat to Obama's speech on changing our defense posture. Benghazi is fading even more so. In the interim, the House GOP is setting up for a big fail on immigration that is going to turn you all into a minor regional party by 2016.

I think even your Shakin Puttin is going to be too bored to listen to you soon.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#109 at 05-28-2013 03:07 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
Again, you're just linking to a second-rate newspaper and a second-rate blog.

I've provide the actual IRS IG Report and the former head of the IRS testimony in front of Congress...
...with the inspiration for PW's analysis provided by Huffpo and friends.

What the report says, is that of those identified, that one-third were conservative/libertarian. How many of the others are as well?
Meanwhile, we already know that obviously unworthy "progressive" groups got a pass:

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/14/ir...thers-charity/

Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years...

...The National Legal and Policy Center filed an official complaint with the IRS in May 2011 asking why the foundation was being allowed to solicit tax-deductible contributions when it had not even applied for an IRS determination... Nevertheless, a month later, the Barack H. Obama Foundation had flown through the grueling application process. Lerner granted the organization a 501(c) determination and even gave it a retroactive tax exemption dating back to December 2008...
...while all the conservative libertarian groups got slammed:

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...-hold/2159983/

...In the 27 months that the Internal Revenue Service put a hold on all Tea Party applications for non-profit status, it approved applications from similar liberal groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows...
...and considering that even the WH has given up on PW's distraction, I wonder how long it will be before PW's story changes.





----


Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/irs-s...0#.UZz3h1Qo7cs

...Things started brewing earlier this month when Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington first admitted conservative groups were targeted for extra scrutiny by tax bureaucrats in Ohio's Queen City...







Post#110 at 05-28-2013 03:43 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
...zombie yadda yadda....
Okay, your zombie re-posting of the same third-tier news links and thinking you're doing something new (clearly a sign of your insanity) has risen to the level of another one for the "Glick Schticks" -

http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...887#post377887

- I'll get around to it soon and then, as with all your other zombie lies, folks can just simply respond to you with a link.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#111 at 05-28-2013 03:53 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
Okay, your zombie re-posting of the same third-tier news links and thinking you're doing something new (clearly a sign of your insanity) has risen to the level of another one for the "Glick Schticks" ...
The reason I have to keep reposting is that PW obviously isn't getting the point:

1) The IRS admitted that Conservative/Libertarian groups were unfairly targeted:

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/irs-s...0#.UZz3h1Qo7cs

...Things started brewing earlier this month when Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington first admitted conservative groups were targeted for extra scrutiny by tax bureaucrats in Ohio's Queen City...
2) That this targeting harassment delayed most for over two years:

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...-hold/2159983/

...In the 27 months that the Internal Revenue Service put a hold on all Tea Party applications for non-profit status, it approved applications from similar liberal groups, a USA TODAY review of IRS data shows...
...while Progressive groups, like this one connected with Obama's half-brother:

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/14/ir...thers-charity/

Lois Lerner, the senior IRS official at the center of the decision to target tea party groups for burdensome tax scrutiny, signed paperwork granting tax-exempt status to the Barack H. Obama Foundation, a shady charity headed by the president’s half-brother that operated illegally for years...

...The National Legal and Policy Center filed an official complaint with the IRS in May 2011 asking why the foundation was being allowed to solicit tax-deductible contributions when it had not even applied for an IRS determination... Nevertheless, a month later, the Barack H. Obama Foundation had flown through the grueling application process. Lerner granted the organization a 501(c) determination and even gave it a retroactive tax exemption dating back to December 2008...

...slid by, which is why Lois Lerner was busy taking the fifth.

How long before she flips state evidence?










Post#112 at 05-30-2013 02:46 AM by '58 Flat [at Hardhat From Central Jersey joined Jul 2001 #posts 3,300]
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
In the interim, the House GOP is setting up for a big fail on immigration that is going to turn you all into a minor regional party by 2016.

The occasional neo-Malthusian who will join them in doing this notwithstanding.
But maybe if the putative Robin Hoods stopped trying to take from law-abiding citizens and give to criminals, take from men and give to women, take from believers and give to anti-believers, take from citizens and give to "undocumented" immigrants, and take from heterosexuals and give to homosexuals, they might have a lot more success in taking from the rich and giving to everyone else.

Don't blame me - I'm a Baby Buster!







Post#113 at 05-30-2013 12:29 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news...s-letters-show

Additional scrutiny of conservative organizations’ activities by the IRS did not solely originate in the agency’s Cincinnati office, with requests for information coming from other offices and often bearing the signatures of higher-ups at the agency, according to attorneys representing some of the targeted groups. At least one letter requesting information about one of the groups bears the signature of Lois Lerner, the suspended director of the IRS Exempt Organizations department in Washington...

Among the letters were several that bore return IRS addresses other than Cincinnati...

...attorneys for some of the targeted groups’ provided documentation and two IRS employees in the Cincinnati office made statements to NBC News that call into question parts of the official explanation Americans have heard from the IRS so far...

http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/29/ir...abinet-member/

Publicly released records show that embattled former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House at least 157 times during the Obama administration, more recorded visits than even the most trusted members of the president’s Cabinet...

...every current and former member of President Obama’s Cabinet would have had to rack up at least 60 more public visits to the president’s home to catch up with “Douglas Shulman.”

Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama’s friend and loyal lieutenant, logged 62 publicly known White House visits, not even half as many as Shulman’s 157.
Former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, to whom Shulman reported, clocked in at just 48 publicly known visits.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earned a cool 43 public visits, and current Secretary of State John Kerry logged 49 known White House visits in the same timeframe, when he was still a U.S. senator.

Shulman has more recorded visits to the White House than HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (48), DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano (34), Education Secretary Arne Duncan (31), former Energy Secretary Steven Chu (22) and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates (17) combined...







Post#114 at 05-30-2013 09:42 PM by Brian Beecher [at Downers Grove, IL joined Sep 2001 #posts 2,937]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news...s-letters-show

Additional scrutiny of conservative organizations’ activities by the IRS did not solely originate in the agency’s Cincinnati office, with requests for information coming from other offices and often bearing the signatures of higher-ups at the agency, according to attorneys representing some of the targeted groups. At least one letter requesting information about one of the groups bears the signature of Lois Lerner, the suspended director of the IRS Exempt Organizations department in Washington...

Among the letters were several that bore return IRS addresses other than Cincinnati...

...attorneys for some of the targeted groups’ provided documentation and two IRS employees in the Cincinnati office made statements to NBC News that call into question parts of the official explanation Americans have heard from the IRS so far...

http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/29/ir...abinet-member/

Publicly released records show that embattled former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House at least 157 times during the Obama administration, more recorded visits than even the most trusted members of the president’s Cabinet...

...every current and former member of President Obama’s Cabinet would have had to rack up at least 60 more public visits to the president’s home to catch up with “Douglas Shulman.”

Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama’s friend and loyal lieutenant, logged 62 publicly known White House visits, not even half as many as Shulman’s 157.
Former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, to whom Shulman reported, clocked in at just 48 publicly known visits.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earned a cool 43 public visits, and current Secretary of State John Kerry logged 49 known White House visits in the same timeframe, when he was still a U.S. senator.

Shulman has more recorded visits to the White House than HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (48), DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano (34), Education Secretary Arne Duncan (31), former Energy Secretary Steven Chu (22) and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates (17) combined...
Do you feel its time to begin moving in the direction of replacing the personal income tax with a consumption tax, thus leading the IRS to its eventual grave?







Post#115 at 05-31-2013 02:40 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,715]
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Quote Originally Posted by Brian Beecher View Post
Do you feel its time to begin moving in the direction of replacing the personal income tax with a consumption tax, thus leading the IRS to its eventual grave?
Think aabout who pays consumption taxes. The rich pay substantially less, consuming only a fraction of what they make and not all of that inside a tax regime. The poor consume all of thieir income. the middle class, most of it.

This is regressive taxaion at its worst.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#116 at 05-31-2013 04:36 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon View Post
Think aabout who pays consumption taxes. The rich pay substantially less...
This is regressive taxaion at its worst.
-The rich only pay substantially less if they spend substantially less.

From the progressive mindset, that means more money invested, while the greedy types who spend money for stuff on themselves get their just punishment for their selfishness! Hooray!

Quote Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon View Post
... The poor consume all of thieir income. the middle class, most of it...
1) Gives an incentive to be a smarter shopper, no?

2) The current system encourages debt. Bad.

3) Gives everyone an incentive to see that the US government spends taxes wisely.

Quote Originally Posted by Brian Beecher View Post
Do you feel its time to begin moving in the direction of replacing the personal income tax with a consumption tax, thus leading the IRS to its eventual grave?
-That would be better. Even better would be user fees. National defense? Pay a fee.

But either has the the advantage of being easier to check, which actaully requires less intrusion, and higher compliance. The consumption tax also captures money spent by those working under the table (like Timothy Geithner). It also gets ecverything spent by those horned, hoofed and tailed cackling rich people with pitchforks.

To be honest, there would still probably be an IRS, but it would be smaller and less intrusive. Except that now, it's going to be in charge of Obamacare...







Post#117 at 06-01-2013 01:51 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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This is funny:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...investigation/

...The IRS missed its May 21st deadline to turn over documents to the House Ways and Means Committee.

The same source said the IRS argues it missed its deadline because of the scope of documents it is collecting...

Ha ha ha ha ha ! I wonder if they see the irony?




Oh, here's a shock:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/3...l#.UaiGMECze-0

...While the developing scandal over the targeting of conservatives by the tax agency has largely focused to date on its scrutiny of groups with words such as “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, these examples suggest the government was looking at a broader array of conservative groups and perhaps individuals...

...In March 2011, an IRS employee in El Monte, Calif., asked in a grammatically challenged letter whether the group protested in front of medical facilities.

“In your educational program, do you education on both sides of the issues in your program?” IRS Exempt Organization Specialist Tyrone Thomas asked in the letter, a copy of which was provided by the Thomas More Society.

Thomas also asked, “do you try to block people to enter a building, e. medical clinic, or any other facility?”

The IRS hasn’t said who originally authored or authorized any of the questions that it now says were part of inappropriate criteria applied to conservative groups... [ Ironically, Planned Parenthood does enjoy the type of tax-exempt status that Martinek’s group originally sought... ]





--

http://nationalreview.com/article/34...nse-mark-steyn

...Although acting commissioner Steven Miller apologized for the “horrible customer service” conservative taxpayers had gotten, a gentleman by the name of Malik Obama received impeccable, express service when he took the precaution of mailing in his non-profit application from N’giya, Kenya, rather than notoriously slower mail processing centers such as Phoenix and Dallas. Malik, the brother of President Obama, runs the Barack H. Obama Foundation, named for the president’s father. On May 30, 2011, they applied for tax-exempt status, and had their approval signed less than a month later by Lois Lerner herself, and conveniently backdated by Lois to cover the two-and-a-half years the enterprising Malik had already been raking in “tax-deductible” donations from Americans. The Washington address of the Barack H. Obama Foundation appears to be bogus, and it’s not clear whether the funds are being used back in Kenya for anything other than supporting the famously lavish lifestyle of Malik and his twelve wives. Given that the IRS is not shy about asking American conservatives for Facebook posts and lists of who attends their meetings, Ms. Lerner surely would have been within her rights to ask Malik Obama about the “exclusive” photographs currently displayed on the Barack H. Obama Foundation website of a recent meeting in Sudan, one of only four countries the U.S. government designates as a “terrorist state,” and the Foundation’s apparently extensive association with the Sudanese president and blood-soaked genocidal war criminal Omar al-Bashir. Given that the IRS likes to ask conservative taxpayers whether their friends and relatives are planning on running for office, Ms. Lerner might like to ask Malik Obama when his friend President Bashir is planning on leaving office... [or the Barack Obama... ]

...Let’s take it as read that, when U.S. taxpayers wind up giving tax breaks to an entity linked to the butchers of Darfur, it’s pure coincidence that the racket turns out to be run by the president’s brother. Let’s accept that Malik Obama just got lucky that his letter landed on the desk of Lois Lerner, and that, when she backdated his application for two-and-a-half years, she’d momentarily forgotten that it’s illegal for her to backdate it more than two-and-a-quarter years...

...Hundreds and hundreds of groups were consigned to the purgatory of “pending” — a term for IRS customers not as favored as Malik Obama can stretch leisurely from six months to ten to twenty to thirty, and beyond. When the most lavishly funded government on the planet comes after you, eventual guilt or innocence is irrelevant: The process is the punishment...
...The IRS has, in American terms, extraordinary powers. It was, for example, amusing to see Lois Lerner plead the Fifth Amendment and exercise her constitutional right not to put herself at risk of self-incrimination. As the great Walter Williams pointed out the other day, every single American waives his Fifth Amendment rights every time he signs that tax return on April 15. Americans are fearless if some guy pulls some stunt in a shopping mall, but an IRS assault is brutal and unending...







Post#118 at 06-02-2013 07:42 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,451]
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the unbearable stupidity of Glickness

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
Publicly released records show that embattled former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House at least 157 times during the Obama administration, more recorded visits than even the most trusted [/COLOR]members of the president’s Cabinet...[/B]

...every current and former member of President Obama’s Cabinet would have had to rack up at least 60 more public visits to the president’s home to catch up with “Douglas Shulman.”

Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obama’s friend and loyal lieutenant, logged 62 publicly known White House visits, not even half as many as Shulman’s 157.
Former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, to whom Shulman reported, clocked in at just 48 publicly known visits.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earned a cool 43 public visits, and current Secretary of State John Kerry logged 49 known White House visits in the same timeframe, when he was still a U.S. senator.

Shulman has more recorded visits to the White House than HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (48), DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano (34), Education Secretary Arne Duncan (31), former Energy Secretary Steven Chu (22) and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates (17) combined...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...-house/276399/

The Fake Story About the IRS Commissioner and the White House
White House records show Douglas Shulman signed in for 11 visits, not 157, between 2009 and 2012.
Do a web search of Shulman and 157 and look at the stupid right wing nut echo chamber including Bill O'Reilly, other Faux News morons and even lesser beings of the Right cartoon land lap up this magic pony poo like it was candy.

Is there anything these clowns in the clown car can say without everyone knowing they're lying their asses off???

You would think the ones with a half-functioning brain would question why a Bush appointee would be in some evil conspiracy with Obama, but nooooooo. It must be the lack of the other half of brains.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#119 at 06-03-2013 02:51 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,016]
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Quote Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon View Post
Think about who pays consumption taxes. The rich pay substantially less, consuming only a fraction of what they make and not all of that inside a tax regime. The poor consume all of their income. the middle class, most of it.

This is regressive taxation at its worst.
Indeed, just think of the ultimate way to pay practically no consumptions: to own a self-contained plantation. The plantation largely produces cotton or some other cash crop. It has its own stand of timber, so even building materials might be exempt from taxation. Maybe it has a gravel quarry and a stone quarry -- good for concrete for the driveway. The plantation grows its own food for its employees who never get paid in cash, so nobody ever pays sales taxes for food if he lives on the plantation -- whether the planter's family or the farm workers. Electrical power is supplied by a dammed river or wind power -- thus no taxes will ever be paid on electricity. Need furniture? Somebody on the plantation is probably a good carpenter -- so nobody ever needs pay sales taxes on furniture, whether for a Louis-Quatorze chair or a rough bench that plantation workers share. Glassware? Someone blows it on the plantation.

Labor -- very cheap labor -- of course makes it all possible. resources are all from on the plantation. Because it is all agricultural it is taxed at low rates if at all.

That's how Southern economies worked. Planters paid practically no taxes despite spectacular incomes. Anyone not on the plantation paid very high taxes as subsidy to the ruling elite. Something like that is what the super-rich might like. The super-rich did not pay property taxes (the State of Alabama has a prohibition on taxing any land dedicated to cotton or timber in its state constitution), income taxes, or appreciable consumption taxes. Everyone else did.

Bingo!
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#120 at 06-03-2013 03:41 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,715]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
-The rich only pay substantially less if they spend substantially less.

From the progressive mindset, that means more money invested, while the greedy types who spend money for stuff on themselves get their just punishment for their selfishness! Hooray!

1) Gives an incentive to be a smarter shopper, no?

2) The current system encourages debt. Bad.

3) Gives everyone an incentive to see that the US government spends taxes wisely.

-That would be better. Even better would be user fees. National defense? Pay a fee.

But either has the the advantage of being easier to check, which actaully requires less intrusion, and higher compliance. The consumption tax also captures money spent by those working under the table (like Timothy Geithner). It also gets ecverything spent by those horned, hoofed and tailed cackling rich people with pitchforks.

To be honest, there would still probably be an IRS, but it would be smaller and less intrusive. Except that now, it's going to be in charge of Obamacare...
This post is unusually weak. It's obvious that the rich save and invest ... or they wouldn't stay rich. It's also obviousl that the poor spend everything they make, because even that isn't enough to keep them fed, clothed and housed. I also have expereince in VAT countries. Everything is expensive ... everything. Since my spending is your income, and vice versa, then punishing spending also punishes income. Even the rich see their incomes constrained, because their assets don't perfom as well. They still do just fine, because they avoid income taxes, but they are the only ones.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#121 at 06-03-2013 03:50 PM by annla899 [at joined Sep 2008 #posts 2,861]
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Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
That's how Southern economies worked. Planters paid practically no taxes despite spectacular incomes. Anyone not on the plantation paid very high taxes as subsidy to the ruling elite. Something like that is what the super-rich might like. The super-rich did not pay property taxes (the State of Alabama has a prohibition on taxing any land dedicated to cotton or timber in its state constitution), income taxes, or appreciable consumption taxes. Everyone else did.

Bingo!
And they got 3/5ths extra voting power.







Post#122 at 06-03-2013 04:55 PM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,016]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
-The rich only pay substantially less if they spend substantially less.
They pay proportionately far less than the rest of us in consumption taxes. Someone who earns 100 times as much as I do does not eat 100 times as much hamburger and does not use 100 times as much toilet paper -- or use 100 times as much soap.

From the progressive mindset, that means more money invested, while the greedy types who spend money for stuff on themselves get their just punishment for their selfishness! Hooray!

Maybe this would be a better country if working people made enough money that they could save and invest instead of being reduced to serfs who fear economic catastrophes imposed from some executive suite.

1) Gives an incentive to be a smarter shopper, no?
...let's see -- choosing between turning the air conditioner off and risking heatstroke so that one can buy groceries. The poor increasingly live toward the bottom of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs because our economic elites have decided that their personal indulgence is the only reason for the existence of anyone else.

The super-rich so want things, and their chosen politicians enable that.

2) The current system encourages debt. Bad.
Debt is a fact of life of businesses. So long as the rate or return on the investment is reliably higher than the interest paid on the debt, corporate debt is a good thing. Bonds are desirable investments. So long as we have a profit motive we will have commercial debt on a large scale.

If people are going into debt just to survive, then the prospect of peonage is nigh. People choosing between food, air conditioning, and medicine in the South this time of the year deserve better than the choices that elites have forced upon them so that they can live like sultans or pharaohs.


3) Gives everyone an incentive to see that the US government spends taxes wisely.
Limited funds force that on anything. Duh!



-That would be better. Even better would be user fees. National defense? Pay a fee.
People who have more of a stake in the system, as in defending their investments overseas, benefit more from defense than do people who lose their jobs to those investments overseas. Why should poor people pay for what hurts them?

But either has the the advantage of being easier to check, which actaully requires less intrusion, and higher compliance. The consumption tax also captures money spent by those working under the table (like Timothy Geithner). It also gets everything spent by those horned, hoofed and tailed cackling rich people with pitchforks.
You had better not tax necessities. Economic inequality in the USA is severe for the industrialized world. Poverty is more the norm in America than is wealth -- and people are getting poorer because of choices that the Master Class has imposed upon us.

To be honest, there would still probably be an IRS, but it would be smaller and less intrusive. Except that now, it's going to be in charge of Obamacare...
We need huge reforms of our medical-payments system. A private, for-profit bureaucracy that takes a cut of everything is one way to ensure the world's highest medical costs.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#123 at 06-03-2013 09:15 PM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,505]
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It took me a while but I found this that was reported on the News Hour, but is not on their site"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...497_story.html

Werfel said the IRS would report by the end of the month on its progress in three areas: accountability for the problems, solutions to those problems, and a broader review of agency operations. These goals align with directives President Obama and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew gave Werfel when he took the job. The new acting commissioner also said the IRS needs to immediately address the backlog of tax-exemption applications that were held up under the targeting campaign. He said he has ordered the top tax-exemption officials to submit a plan for expediting that process without compromising fairness and impartiality.

George said again that his audit did not definitively determine whether the IRS’s inappropriate behavior was politically motivated, something administration officials have insisted was not the case. He said IRS employees would not acknowledge during the auditing process who gave the directive to target conservative groups. He has said in previous testimony that questioning IRS personnel under oath may yield more information on that subject.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#124 at 06-04-2013 12:19 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,116]
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
-Schulman seems to have looked the other way. This absolves the Obamanation because...

The fact is, Lois Lerner and her merry band were targeting groups that the Obamanation didn't like. You can tell PW doesn't believe his own spin by how his desperate, irrational frothing at the mouth:

Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
... Is there anything these clowns in the clown car can say without everyone knowing they're lying their asses off???

You would think the ones with a half-functioning brain would question why a Bush appointee would be in some evil conspiracy with Obama, but nooooooo. It must be the lack of the other half of brains.
...anyway...

Quote Originally Posted by Eric the Green View Post
It took me a while but I found this that was reported on the News Hour, but is not on their site"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...497_story.html

...

...and:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-...inated-in-d.c/

Issa pointed to the testimony of IRS employees from the Cincinnati office who spoke to his committee and indicated that IRS headquarters in Washington requested a sample of applications from conservative groups for tax exempt status...

...An employee also rebuffed the charge that the additional scrutiny paid to conservative groups was the product of a decision made locally the Cincinnati office. "It's impossible," the employee explained. "As an agent we are controlled by many, many people. We have to submit many, many reports. So the chance of two agents being rogue and doing things like that could never happen."
The interrogator followed up, asking, "With respect to the particular scrutiny that was given to Tea Party applications, those directions emanated from Washington, is that right?"

"I believe so," replied the IRS employee...

...if the ongoing targeting scandal plaguing the IRS were not enough of a headache, another controversy - this time over excessive IRS spending on conferences - began gathering steam on Sunday, with Issa's committee flagging a watchdog report, due to be released in full this week, that found that the IRS spent $50 million on 220 conferences between 2010 and 2012.
Perhaps the most conspicuous expenditure was an August 2010 conference in Anaheim, Calif., for which event planners did not negotiate lower hotel room rates, although they were buying in bulk, opting instead to pay the full price and obtain perks for IRS employees, like drink vouchers and ballgame tickets. A taxpayer-funded video released on Friday by the IRS also documented employees learning how to dance as part of the preparation for the conference.

The total cost of the Anaheim conference: $4 million...

Quote Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon View Post
... It's obvious that the rich save and invest ... or they wouldn't stay rich...
-Obviously, some poor people manage to save and invest, and some rich people blow everything they have. Whatever else you want to say about consumption taxes, they would reward the former and punish the latter. I'd think that would be the manipulative sort of think a progressive would like.

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
They pay proportionately far less than the rest of us in consumption taxes. Someone who earns 100 times as much as I do does not eat 100 times as much hamburger and does not use 100 times as much toilet paper -- or use 100 times as much soap...
-They do spend more, on different things. Or don't you pay attention when the trust fund Playdude goes on one of his tirades about how much more he spends than I do (and presumably you and M&L)?

Quote Originally Posted by pbrower2a View Post
...Planters paid practically no taxes despite spectacular incomes...
-It looks like you never heard of a thing called the tariff. It was a major source of federal revenue, and a topic which got a little political play in the 19th century. Perhaps you've heard about it.

You might also want to look into property taxes...







Post#125 at 06-04-2013 12:56 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,715]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
-Obviously, some poor people manage to save and invest, and some rich people blow everything they have. Whatever else you want to say about consumption taxes, they would reward the former and punish the latter. I'd think that would be the manipulative sort of think a progressive would like.
So you recommend a tax system based on the perfomnace of outliers? Yes, some poor people save even though it hurts. I had a great-aunt in that category. Still, most poor people spend all or most of what they make. The rich typically do not. This is based on the 97% (3 sigma) not the 3%. Arguing that structuring a tax system for the very few is good, because it rewards good behavior, is specious when the good behavior is not possible in most cases. Worse still, that "good behavior" is antithetical to a vibrant economy.

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 ...
-They do spend more, on different things. Or don't you pay attention when the trust fund Playdude goes on one of his tirades about how much more he spends than I do (and presumably you and M&L)?
I don't scrimp nor do I spend wastefully. I try to live an enjoyable life. I have no intention of being a monk living in a unheated cell for the questionable virtue of being thrifty, not shoould that be a civic virtue. On the other hand, if I had a $1,000,000 annual income, I would save a lot more than I already do, because I could without it affecting the way I choose to live. I suspect I'm in the normal range on that.

BTW, on the subject of the rich buying things we don't: agreed, but they don't buy them where we buy them. Need a personal jet? Get one through a broker in the Caymans, keep it there and save on all the taxes. The same applies to yachts and other luxury goods. The Caymans are not unique either.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
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