Tax Tyranny

IRS Commissioner Answers Questions on Income Tax Liability
By Robert R. Raymond
April 28, 2004

In late breaking news, IRS commissioner Mark Everson, in an attempt to quell the growing Income tax resistance, answered claims that the IRS refuses to be candid about what law makes an American man or woman liable for the Income tax. With millions of American’s asking questions regarding who is liable for the Individual Income Tax, Commissioner Everson answered specific questions, to end once and for all, any doubt that the law requires people to pay the income tax. With the skill of a Harvard trained lawyer he answered questions with pinpoint accuracy. With today’s answers there can be no doubt about what laws the IRS is enforcing.... More at web link.

Posted: April 13, 2004

Madison - If you're planning to cheat when you file your federal tax return by Thursday's deadline, chances are one of your friends won't turn you in.
Badger Poll

Opinions on Taxes

More than two-thirds of Wisconsin residents said they wouldn't report a dishonest friend to authorities, according to a Badger Poll released today.

Twenty-seven percent of the 500 randomly selected residents who were surveyed said they would do nothing if they discovered a friend had cheated on a tax return, and 51% said they would talk to the friend but do nothing more. Twelve percent said they would talk to the friend but still report the impropriety, while only 4% said they would report the friend without discussing it first. Six percent said they didn't know what they would do in that situation or declined to answer the question.

Most people think it's the government's responsibility to catch any wrongdoing, according to the poll. Fifty-nine percent of those surveyed said it's up to the authorities to find cheaters, while 31% said other citizens have a duty to report wrongdoing, 8% said they didn't know, and 2% declined to answer the question.

"Clearly, one has the obligation to be honest themselves, but that does not mean that people feel they need to be part of the enforcement system," said G. Donald Ferree Jr., director of the Badger Poll.

"Taxpayers Paying For Polluters' Clean-Up: As Americans stream into post offices across the country today to mail their tax returns, their task will be made even less palatable when they learn that the Bush administration is now charging the public - rather than polluters - for the clean-up of Superfund sites." read now

But this year, with the Occupation of Iraq beginning to unravel and the conquered (or "freed") country exloding in resistance, it seems appropriate to concentrate our regular Tax Day protests on one front: War Tax Resistance.

If Republicans put into practice their campaign rhetoric, then the Republican control of the Congress for the last ten years should have resulted in at least a reduction of the EITC program, if not its outright elimination.

“The IRS doesn’t debate the tax law in the public or through the media,” replies the IRS’ Weller. “We present our case in court where we have had a 100% slam-dunk success rate against frivolous arguments.”

The IRS Oversight Board said in a report last month that the IRS budget should increase to $11.2 billion, about $500 million more than the administration requested. That would add 3,300 enforcement staff and yield additional tax revenue of $5 billion a year, the board said.

"The 861 Evidence: A disturbing exposé of the United States Income Tax System." view now

Customers were allegedly advised to create a company known as a "corporation sole" used by churches, religious institutions and church leaders. The Justice Department alleged that 700 customers, located in nearly every state and some foreign countries, participated.

The problem is that Kerry isn't really interested in shrinking the size of government, and that makes it impossible to get the numbers to add up, says the Wall Street Journal:

House Republicans don't believe that tax relief is "spending." To spend money, it must first be yours. To us, tax relief is simply returning a family's hard-earned money.

Local officials who are indicted for felony crimes related to the administration of their office should be suspended to protect the public's interest. They should not be left in a position of decision-making authority where they could continue to break the law and cause harm to the special relationship between the government and the governed.

The change, folded into a corporate tax cut pending in the Senate, limits the tax deductions companies can immediately claim when they lease foreign public works and claim a tax deduction for the infrastructure’s depreciated value.

The report showed 61 percent of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes from 1996 through 2000 . . . An estimated 94 percent of U.S. corporations reported tax liabilities amounting to less than 5 percent of their income in 2000.

Trade between China and the United States reached a historic high of US$126.3 billion in 2003 despite disputes over issues such as anti-dumping and trade imbalance. However, an unnamed expert from the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Co-operation said the nations won't budge on some key issues which will cloud the JCCT meeting.

THIS WAS, to be sure, "the home of the free and the land of the brave." Americans were free simply because the government was too weak to intervene in the private affairs of the people-it did not have the money to do so-and they were brave because a free people is always venturesome. The obligation of freedom is a willingness to stand on your own feet.

The early American wanted it that way. He was wary of government, especially one that was out of his reach. He had just rid himself of far-away and self-sufficient political establishment and he was not going to tolerate anything like it in his newly founded country. He recognized the need of some sort of government, to keep order, to protect him in the exercise of his rights, and to look after his interests in foreign lands. But, he wanted it understood that the powers of that government would be clearly defined and be limited; it could not go beyond specified limits. It was in recognition of this fear of centralized power that the Founding Fathers put into the Constitution-it never would have been ratified without them-very specific restraints on the federal government.

In other matters, the early American was willing to put his faith in home government, in a government of neighbors, in a government that one could keep one’s eyes on and, if necessary, lay one’s hands on. For that reason, the United States was founded as a Union of separate and autonomous commonwealths. The states could go in for any political experiments the folks might want to try out-even socialism, for that matter-but the federal government had no such leeway. After all, there were other states nearby, and if a citizen did not like the way one state government was managing its affairs, he could move across the border; that threat of competition would keep each state from going too far in making changes or in intervening in the lives of the citizens.

The Constitution, then, kept the federal government off balance and weak. And a weak government is the corollary of a strong people.

The Sixteenth Amendment changed all that. In the first place, by enabling the federal government to put its hands into the pockets and pay envelopes of the people, it drew their allegiance away from their local governments. It made them citizens of the United States rather than of their respective states.

Nevada's law is better than similarly intended laws in many other states because it requires landowners who file plans to develop farmland to repay taxes at a higher rate going back seven years.

If government is to ameliorate the dislocations of international competition, President Bush's proposal for individual retraining accounts makes far more economic sense.

"At the heart of every abusive tax shelter is a tax lawyer or accountant." The IRS has historically restrained itself from regulating paid tax preparers even though there is no statutory restriction.

BuzzFlash interview with David Cay Johnston.

At the end nothing can act as the deterrent better than civil society armed with the Right to Information Act.