The public should be frightened that Democrats are passing new legislation to weaponize the already abusive Internal Revenue Service.
For nearly a century, the IRS has been used by presidents and members of Congress to harass and incriminate political foes. In addition to collecting revenue to fund the government, the IRS is a hit squad that destroys reputations and criminalizes dissenters.
A lot of pain can be inflicted under the guise of tax “auditing.” The bill passed by Congress last week, erroneously labeled the Inflation Reduction Act, will mean more audits and investigations. The bill roughly doubles funding for the IRS enforcement division, adding an estimated 49,600 agents and auditors.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is starving the Defense Department, requesting too little funding to even keep up with inflation, despite Russian and Chinese aggression. Yet his bill will make the IRS three-quarters the size of the U.S. Marine Corps. Who’s Biden making war on?
It’s true the IRS needs funding to improve services to taxpayers, including getting phone calls answered and returns processed, and moving from antiquated paper files to modern technology. The bill allocates a minuscule amount to those priorities and puts the lion’s share — over $45 billion — into “enforcement,” including hiring and arming agents.
As much as 90% of the funds raised through beefed up audits will come from people making less than $200,000 a year, according to the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. Audits can bring a tsunami of government document demands and repeated visits from IRS agents over months or even years. Most people don’t have accountants and lawyers to insulate them from the pain.
While the bill increases IRS muscle, it fails to impose serious criminal penalties for leaking confidential taxpayer information and political targeting. History shows how dangerous that will be.
In the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the IRS to harass newspaper publishers who opposed his New Deal and adversaries like Huey Long and Charles Coughlin.
Throughout the 1950s and ’60s, the IRS gave FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover access to its files, allowing tax information to be weaponized against the National Council of Churches, the NAACP and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
President John F. Kennedy set up the Ideological Organizations Audit Project to target right-leaning groups, including the think tank American Enterprise Institute and the John Birch Society.
President Richard Nixon’s counsel, John Dean, admitted the administration used “the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” The IRS was Nixon’s weapon of choice. The article of impeachment against Nixon included charges that he ordered “income tax audits or other income tax investigations” in “a discriminatory manner.”
President Bill Clinton sicced the IRS on accusers Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones.
President Barack Obama’s IRS targeted tea party groups and other conservative nonprofits leading up to the 2012 presidential election, delaying their tax status to keep them from raising money. That scandal blew open in 2013 when IRS official Lois Lerner admitted the targeting. Yet no charges were brought against Lerner or any other IRS official, and she retired with full benefits.
And the abuse continues. Biden’s IRS leaked confidential tax information from Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and other billionaires to left-wing publication ProPublica. Tax information is supposed to be kept confidential. We Americans have no choice but to provide it. But the IRS was playing footsie with left-wing media to help Democrats push their false claim that a tax crackdown is needed.
NPR praised the bill passed last week for “going after rich tax dodgers,” while Slate magazine cheered the “supercharged” IRS.
Don’t buy the rhetoric. Tax evasion is not a serious problem in the U.S., as it is in many other nations. Americans deplore tax cheats, according to the polls. The U.S. has one of the highest voluntary tax compliance rates in the world — about 84%.
In truth, the agency’s magnified clout will be used to muzzle and punish political critics. That’s a serious blow to our freedom.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.
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The IRS, the new Gestapo, of the USA along with the corrupt FBI, CIA, NSA and the rest of the DOJ. Tyranny is on the move for new era that only existed 90 years ago in Europe. Why do people ignore the past failures of history and think they can improve on those failures? As our favorite commentator, Paul E, usually states “The sheep are still asleep.” (paraphrased) Look out, USA, here comes the worst!
We ARE in a RECESSION. Now we are going into a SUPER RECESSION with DICTATOR Beijing biden’s IRS STASI at helm.
Yet, NONE of the MILLIONS of ILLEGAL ALIEN TERRORIST INVADERS will be PAYING TAXES or have the IRS STASI
RAIDING them.
But the IRS STASI will RAID AMERICANS with compliments of DICTATOR Beijing biden and his COMMUNIST Party.
That is the definition of the Progressive (Democrats) Party…DICTATOR and COMMUNISM.
Well of course the IRS is being bulked up in order to go after any and all enemies of the Democrats. Whatever additional monies collected by these additional IRS agents is a secondary priority to effectively attacking and then silencing anyone not on board with the Democrat agenda. Nicely written article on the history the IRS has played in targeting the enemies of the federal government for those that were unaware of how the IRS has played a crucial part in attacking critics.
It is long overdue, but the entire tax code should be overhauled & simplified. Adding +50,000 new IRS agents will add to Fed deficit . If the IRS knows this many corporations & individuals are cheating on their taxes, why don’t they go after this now. They put out a dollar amount, so they must know who is cheating now.
I would like it a lot better if Departments in Govt. cut employees & not increase them like this bill will do to the IRS. What is annual salary of these new agents?
How does the Trump tax cuts for corporations fit in with the 15% tax on Corporations per Biden yesterday. I think Trump cuts were in effect thru 2025 or something. What is story here, is this just putting taxes back the way they were before Trump term.
This is a total hit job on our democracy and all our constitutional freedoms. Hitler basically did the exact same thing with thousands of brown shirts policing the streets and making sure all the German citizens adhered to the totalitarian NAZI Regime. Why do we need almost 100 thousand additional IRS AGENTS?? That are extremely well armed and will use deadly force at the drop of a hat! And trust me they will! This is exactly what OBAMA was working on in his last term as president. Have a democrat run federal agency berate and harass every small and mid size business, it’s an effort to destroy capitalism and wring in a tyrannical government state. That’s alls this is actually all about. And with Biden signing another trillion dollar CLIMATE CHANGE SCHEME to make everything sound legitimate it’s another death blow to our Already fragile economy.
I too am weaponized…as are all PATRIOTIC AMERICANS…THE irs may find this out the hard way!!!!
I suspect a big percentage of the additional IRS workers are not there to make the IRS more efficient … but rather to gain an insight on how the DemocRats and their followers can squeeze out a little extra-few dollars of taxes away from the IRS come tax time submission. And maybe target some non-DemocRats taxpayers with having to come up with a little extra in taxes.
The Demoncrats are pure evil, what the hell they need this army for. After we get the House back this ACT needs to be seriously defunded.
The “representatives” imposing these rules and conditions upon the people will not live to experience nor observe the consequences of their actions. It’s time for the rallying cry, “Term Limits” to resound across the nation and eliminate careers for politicians. They begin to love the cameras too much. They aren’t smarter than average people, just more devious and determined.
It’s hard for mainstream America to support conservative politicians when there is no middle class. Just take their money…………
The IRS, as a whole, should be abolished. It should be replaced with a flat tax, automatically deducted from income. Eliminate “reporting” or “filing” altogether.With today’s technology, this would be extremely simple!
ALL libs NEED TO BE ABOLISHED AS they ARE THE ENEMY OF OUR NATION
Nazi America here we come and the Republican Party as always let’s the left crap on America’ss.
Our Country has gone To hell.
Are you surprised? . . . If you control the purse strings, you can then control the person. Don’t forget, ultimate control is their main priority!
Nothing quite like making enemies out of the people who are actually working and producing. I doubt anyone will pursue the fraud taking place with the people who are receiving all the handouts from our sweat and blood.
The “rich” (mostly DIMMs nowadays) have scores of CPAs and tax lawyers to set up tax shelters. We “deplorables” can barely survive Senile Joe’s disastrous economy now. How will we come up with even more money to feed the alligators in the SWAMP?
12 years old Girl explains why most of the world, is in debt
bing.com/videos/search?q=12+year+old+girl+explains+mortgages&view=detail&mid=9E82C87CB953FE645B2D9E82C87CB953FE645B2D&FORM=VIRE
Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy
michaeljournal.org/articles/politics/item/abraham-lincoln-and-john-f-kennedy#:~:text=Of%20course%2C%20the%20Bankers%20were%20not%20going%20to,enacted%2C%20in%20its%20place%2C%20the%20National%20Banking%20Act.
Two great presidents of the United States assassinated for the cause of justice
November 22, 2003 marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, and a majority of Americans still believe that there was a conspiracy behind this assassination. Both Abraham Lincoln and Kennedy were assassinated while they held the high office of President of the United States. Both of these former presidents had also created their own money system to run the United States while they were in office. Is this just a coincidence?
Why assassinate a President? Why must everything be kept so covered up? What are they trying to hide from the American people? The facts will speak for themselves.
Shortly after that happened, “The London Times” printed the following: “If that mischievous financial policy, which had its origin in the North American Republic, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without a debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed, or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”
The Bankers obviously understood. The only thing, I repeat, the only thing that is a threat to their power is sovereign governments printing interest-free and debt-free paper money. They know it would break the power of the international Bankers.
Clearly the POTUS needs to be completely separated from any control over the IRS.
Further, the tax code should be simplified to a one-page form for tax payment with all carve-outs and other special interest favors cancelled. The IRS should be overseen completely by Congress with a public annual report made, akin to the State Of The Union address (which has is now a political campaign stunt after the disrespectful, shameful and utterly partisan shredding of Trump’s speech by booze-bag Pelosi).
Any continuation of the iRS, and for that mater the FBI, in their present form will not bode well for the trust and cooperation of the American people.
This is part of the move to a cashless America. They’re after the cash in your mattress. Imagine the IRS will have a short time to turn in all the cash. They’ll consider it to be unrealized capital gains and tax it. Also imagine that all that cash currently being held by drug cartels, Iranian Mullas, African war lords, and Bidens buddies the Taliban, will have to find it’s way through the laundry and into U. S. BANKS.It’ll take a small army to sort it all out.I prefer to have the cash.
I wonder what is the ratio of gov employees to citizens they are “”serving”
I heard they needed more agents to answer phones. “In a pig’s eye”
You can watch in real time the WH becoming more desperate with every passing moment. This is a very dangerous time as they reach for anything. Keep your heads up and ears open, trust no one.
IRS is a failed agency that cannot be fixed. It is a politicized funnel for PAC money to flow from IRS employees to the Democrat Party through a PAC. It has had failed computer systems for 40 years. It spent $11 million to upgrade windows machine and the upgrades were out of date before they could be installed.
IRS spends $140 million to upgrade Windows computers and fails freebeacon.com/issues/irs-wasted-11-6-million-of-computer-software/ and that is just the tip of the iceberg. We can replace IRS with a retail sales tax ONLY on spending above poverty level so it is progressive after a monthly tax refund. No income tax, no gift or estate tax, and best of all for seniors no tax on investment returns. Check out FAIRtax.org/faq
An armed police force going after and crushing the middle class. They do not have the resources unlike that of the large corporation with their tax attorneys and lawyers to fight the IRS and so they will simply roll over allowing them to confiscate your money through intimidation. Sad days for America.
An admin of thugs as witnessed at Mara Largo. Who are they decide who should run for President. Is it still We the People or now We the Government?. One proud veteran
This administration’s disability and desperation is not a safe combination for anyone who gets in the way.
Heres how it’ll work: they hire frustrated people hungry to strike back at imagined tormentors. These folks will not be accountants or even people educated in finances. They’ll work in boiler rooms sending out demand letters. Think ramsom ware. A few years ago they shot for the moon hoping to score big. Recently they’ve realized that asking for smaller sums increases the odds of victims paying. So you get a letter saying you owe 900 bucks, or 1500. It wont pay to hire a tax attorney so the easiest course is to pay and hope they forget you.
The deep state is the Marxist shadow government, or as Biden called it, The One World Order.. The aim of any third world state is to destroy the middle class, The new regime will consist of an Elite upper class kept in place by a well paid woke army and Marshal law. A labor class. As a one party state there will be no need to vote ever again..