Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 5:28am

Weaponized IRS

The incredibly arrogant IRS Commissioner John A. Koskinen , a partisan Democrat, has explained to him by Congressman Trey Gowdy (R.SC), a former Federal prosecutor, what the phrase “spoliation of evidence” means.  In the attempt by this administration to hide the obvious, that they turned the IRS into a weapon to wield against those who opposed them, the IRS has engaged in wholesale destruction of relevant evidence.  This is absolutely chilling.  No arm of the Federal government has more day to day involvement with each American than the IRS.  The IRS has the power to inspect the financial records of each American and to punish with fines and penalties those who do not maintain those records.  For any administration to turn this agency into a political weapon, and then to attempt to destroy evidence of their wrongdoing, is to seek to transform government from servant into master.   Enough of this and more and more American’s will recall this phrase from President Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address:

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

Very dangerous games are being played by this administration in their arrogance and contempt for those Americans who oppose them and I hope that the Obama administration will not be recalled by historians as the beginning of a calamitous period for this nation.

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Paul W Primavera
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 6:34am

The Democrats are not going to dialog or compromise on anything. They will not willingly surrender power, and once they have power, they will use any means at their disposal to retain and increase that power. The Republicans are weak-kneed hypocrites, but the Democrats are downright evil.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 6:47am

There’s been discussion of this on other sites. No enterprise with any quantum of professionalism relies on employees to make personal e-mail archives and tales about shelves of physical back-up tapes also beggar belief. Subpoena the IT staff at the IRS, and they’ll tell you the servers on which the e-mail is archived (or can identify who went to the trouble to delete Lois Lerner’s correspondence if that’s what happened). Koskinen is indubitably lying and lying in a contemptuous manner, as did Douglas Shulman when jabbering about the White House Easter egg roll.

You have to figure at this point that the contents of Lois Lerner’s correspondence must be absolutely toxic. Wagers the White House counsel, the political directorate at the White House, miscellaneous Democratic congressmen, and the President himself would be vulnerable.

David Spaulding
David Spaulding
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 6:55am

That’s about right Art Deco.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 7:18am

Obama makes Dick Nixon look like a saint.

Philip
Philip
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 7:25am

Gestapo! That sums it up for me.
This arm of Obadman’s administration, the IRS, is a ruthless gang of underhanded thugs that abuse the power they have. They are Obamas Gestapo and they must be held accountable for their Gestapo tactics.
Freedom is not free. We better be prepared to protect our freedoms from the beasts who devour and destroy at the table of false public service.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 8:14am

Pre-September 11 cartoon captioned “American Terrorist” had a bald, bespectacled man in a suit with a briefcase on which is emblazoned “IRS.”

One had about as many “rights” in the Spanish Inquisition as one has in a Federal tax court.

TomD
TomD
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 8:18am

If the IRS abuses the power that Congress gave them then Congress should strip them of that power.

Americans have the right to assemble, which includes the right to incorporate for non-profit purposes. When Congress granted the IRS its current power to delay and deny non-profit status, it effectively granted the IRS a power to exercise prior restraint on the right of assembly. This, without any need to protect any counterweighing constitutional right, is intolerable. The only reason this power exists is to make the IRS more efficient.

No. Congress should remove the power of the IRS to grant non-profit status. Non-profits should still register as such with the IRS and file all relevant financial documents. If the IRS believes a few non-profits are really for profit it can haul them into court on fraud charges.

Freedom sometimes requires that government not be as efficient as it can be. The IRS needs to be chastened. It needs to be reminded that we are its masters.

TomD
TomD
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 8:55am

Here is another way to look at it.

With the media so complaint to the current administration, no investigation of this scandal is really going anywhere. It is unlikely that the people to blame for this abuse of power will be held to account. We do know, however, that the power to deny non-profit status has been abused. We know this beyond a reasonable doubt.

So, we don’t need to wait for any investigation to conclude. We need to demand right now that the IRS be legislatively stripped of its power to administratively deny non-profit status. Recent events have shown that there is no compelling state interest for it to have such power, and the compelling need to preserve liberty demands that the power be revoked.

TomD
TomD
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 8:58am

Heh, those who are compliant have no complaint.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 9:44am

I want somebody to remember that it was not just tea party groups that were targeted. Iowa Pro Life is not partisan at all, not involved in politics at all- except it is about the protection of innocent life. The war is not just a political one, it is a cultural war.
The war was declared years ago but operated in a more subtle subversive way. This administration, ( and not just Obama but his whole coalition of cooperators) have made the pursuance of this war more open, while still moving the walnut shells as fast as they can.
Soon enough we of the general non political populace, who grew up hearing about banana republics, who believed that it could never happen here, are going to have to take that Lincoln quote to our hearts.

TomD
TomD
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 10:39am

Recall that Attorney General Eric Holder has still not turned over the bulk of the emails related to the Fast and Furious scandal. This scandal has been dragging on for years now, and is even worse because people have died as a result. The great investigative reporters have all sold their souls years ago,

TomD
TomD
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 10:56am

Anzlyne, a few weeks ago one of the Occupy Wall Street defendants said at her misdemeanor trial that “Everything is political”. Unlike old fashioned liberals, hard leftists do not allow ordinary people to have ordinary lives. Non-partisan? No such thing! Do they know they echo the Bolshevik Strelnikov in Doctor Zhivago? Do they even think about where their ideas will lead?

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 11:41am

If the president were a Republican, the IRS and “fast and furious” scandals would be national obsessions. Because 96% of the media are 100% democrat flacks with bylines and/or microphones.
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Bryan Preston asks, “Which product was more dishonestly marketed: Amazing Live Sea Monkeys or Barack Obama?”
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Deprivation of Constitutional outlets leads to . . .

tamsin325
tamsin325
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 12:00pm

The IRS reminds me of HAL; it has taken on a life of its own in pursuit of increasing the government.

“I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.”

And furthermore, “This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.”

Bill Sr.
Bill Sr.
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 12:25pm

This is just another example of the arrogance of our self absorbed political pontiff who believes he has been enthroned by the New World Order power of the benevolent secular progressives to rule and regulate those who have not yet bowed to their god of governmental subsidies and foolishly still cling to our guns, bibles, and outdated Judeo-Christian principles and values.
It is clear to see the assumption and conclusion is that we need a little more time to understand we no longer have the freedom of decent and his dogma of deliverance from those traditions of our past must eventually be accepted willfully or the persecutions will continue and multiply.
The prevalence of this liberal revolution to revise our allegiances encompasses the entire landscape of his administration. Every value whether within our spiritual faith or the documents of the republic given to us by the founding fathers is under the test of a regime of relativity to which it must comply! Can we not see that our Legislature, Courts¸ Justice Department, and Executive office controlled by a democratic party which reluctantly stopped short of removing all mention of God in their platform have been corrupted and now can do as they please, unopposed and admired by a virtual state run media, ignoring and subverting the very laws they are sworn to uphold?
It is no wonder this pitiful POTUS has the audacity to pretend he can act as a king of kindness and offer us a morsel of mercy on his behalf while we adjust to his absolute authority.

cthemfly25
cthemfly25
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 2:31pm

You are witnessing the precursor of hard tyranny….the infrastructure of tyranny

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 3:16pm

If the incompetent, ne’er-do-well slumming in the White House was a Republican . . .
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So: No one at IRS will be prosecuted for denying Americans political free speech. No one at DOJ will be prosecuted for arming “Fast and Furious” murderers. No one at the State Department or the White House will be held accountable for lying about the Benghazi terror murders. But, the media will destroy NJ Governor Christie for not knowing about two days of two lanes closings on the GWB.
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In 2009, Obama said he’d use the IRS to get his enemies.
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Sarah Palin’s father was never IRS-audited in 50 years. Since his daughter ran for VP , the IRS has hit on him six times.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 3:31pm

David Burge: “”Government” is just a word for things we do together. Like shovel incriminating hard drives into an industrial metal shredder.”

Pat
Pat
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 7:38pm

This latest excuse (outright lie) of ‘lost’ evidence is another symptom that further supports the highly contagious nature of a deadly and insidious moral, psychological disease affecting humanity, especially amid power brokers. The cure is a derivation of sobriety, sanity, and honesty. Clean hands are a preventative measure to susceptibility.

the Old Adam
Tuesday, June 24, AD 2014 7:59pm

These big government leftists are quite dangerous.

William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Thursday, June 26, AD 2014 6:46am

How many rounds of ammunition has the IRS bought?

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Thursday, June 26, AD 2014 7:50am

Here’s partly how it went down.

The Bush administration attempted to privatize (save tax money and reduce jobs of bureaucrats) many IRS jobs. The IRS union, NTEU headed by Ms. Colleen Kelly – a former IRS tax agent or something, was successful in getting Congress to shut down that move. Thence forward, almost every IRS employee became a rabid NTEU fanatic and a extremist Obama supporter. Each year, hundreds of them attend government-funded NTEU “training” sessions in places like Las Vegas and New Orleans. Rep. Issa needs to subpoena Colleen Kelly’s emails and question her under oath regarding her visits to the WH and discussions with high-level WH officials as to how IRS NTEU members could (illegally) help re-elect the president.

The most prominent causes of Federal hard drive “crashes” are Congtessional Subpoenas. If this were Nixon, they’d have impeached him in 2012.

Walsh: They don’t need a bullet. A tax lien is a far more terrible thing. They can take everything.

They have the tax courts, wherein you have fewer protections than before the Spanish Inquisition.

Fourth Amendemnt – doesn’t apply. Fifth Amendemnt – doesn’t apply.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, June 26, AD 2014 8:29am

“They have the tax courts, wherein you have fewer protections than before the Spanish Inquisition.
Fourth Amendemnt – doesn’t apply. Fifth Amendemnt – doesn’t apply.”
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True. The IRS piles penalties on penalties, like paying interest on your interest. The IRS can take everything a person owns and then put a lien on the person himself. It is debtors’ prison with invisible bars. It is being used to punish conservative citizens who disagree with Obama. Obamacare and the HHS Mandate is a fine example of this.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Thursday, June 26, AD 2014 10:45am

what can we do?

William P. Walsh
William P. Walsh
Thursday, June 26, AD 2014 12:20pm

We can encourage our elected representatives to seek a subpoena demanding the White House provide copies of all emails between the IRS, Lerner in particular, and the White House during this Administration. If these confirm reasonable suspicions, ask the same representatives to impeach the President. No ill-will intended, no vengeance sought, just a duty owed to our children, do we rightly seek. “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.”

TomD
TomD
Thursday, June 26, AD 2014 1:56pm

What can we do? Look at my previous posts.

Forget investigations. The answer is simple. If the IRS abuses a power it has, take away that power. It need not be a large revocation, but the revocation needs to be timely and carefully targeted.

If the IRS politically halts the granting of non-profit status, the Congress should revoke its power to do so and allow non-profits to grant themselves such status, with the IRS becoming just a registry.

If the IRS audits certain individuals over and over for political reasons, set a limit. Congress should prohibit a certain number of audits within a certain time (i.e., no more than 3 per 10 years) unless the taxpayer is convicted of criminal tax evasion. That should be really popular on Capitol Hill, BTW, so passage should be easy.

People simply cannot be considered to be free if they are at the continual mercies of an administrative state that requires years to bring to account. The IRS can certainly retain the power needed to finance the government without retaining the arrogance to misuse it. The counter to arrogance is the knowledge that abuse will inevitably result in the dilution of its power.

TomD
TomD
Thursday, June 26, AD 2014 2:24pm

Put it this way: if you can get the people who are to blame, or you can get the law fixed, but not both, then get the law fixed.

TomD
TomD
Thursday, June 26, AD 2014 2:30pm

The hard drive failures would never be tolerated by the IRS in a corporate tax case. In fact, laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley mandate multiple backups of all emails so that hard drive failures will still allow for government collection of information during investigations. Are there laws that mandate the same for the IRS itself? If the IRS refuses to obey such laws will Congress impeach and remove the responsible managers and bar them from government positions? Why are the crickets chirping?

Paul W Primavera
Thursday, June 26, AD 2014 3:39pm

Folks,

The criticism leveled against IRS Management here at this blog is valid and correct. I feel the exact same way about former NRC Chairman Gregory Jackzo and to a lesser extent current NRC Chairwoman Allison MacFarlane. However, we should bear in mind that the individual workers, inspectors, auditors and reviewers are not the ones guilty. Case in point: this year I sadly owe taxes for a variety of reasons and was unable to pay by the April 15th deadline. I telephoned the IRS and got in touch with a person who very kindly and efficiently set me up with a payment plan until I can access certain monies retained in a certain account by a former employer (long story and not relevant). I was flabbergasted. This IRS employee on the phone went out of his way to accommodate me, offering me a variety of options to pay what I owe (after all, it is a Romans 13:6 requirement that we pay the taxes we owe).
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I have been struck by the same sense of duty from individual NRC inspectors at the nuclear power plants where I have worked. Every single one of them were conscientious, attentive to duty and mindful of both nuclear and worker safety. In fact, in 38 years I have had a disagreement with only one NRC inspector, and as events turned out, he was right and I was wrong, and I had to admit it.
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Koskinen in the IRS and MacFarlane in the NRC both need to be trashed canned. But the individual workers trying to do things the right way and follow the Law should be honored and respected. Most of them do have a sense that they are civil SERVANTS and not masters.
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Ok, my brief moment of lucidity is at an end. I will go back to being the incorrigible right-wing pro-nuclear fanatic who drives everyone around him crazy.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Thursday, June 26, AD 2014 10:28pm

“individual workers trying to do things the right way and follow the Law should be honored and respected. Most of them do have a sense that they are civil SERVANTS and not masters.”

You said it better than I could. As an employee of a (state) government agency I know it’s easy to focus on the high profile, overpaid and/or incompetent and/or corrupt political hack appointees at the top and forget that for every one of those in a given agency, there are dozens of low-profile, ordinary folk, making average or below-average money, just trying to do the best they can to assist the public as they would want to be assisted if the situation were reversed.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, June 26, AD 2014 11:12pm

If the IRS politically halts the granting of non-profit status, the Congress should revoke its power to do so and allow non-profits to grant themselves such status, with the IRS becoming just a registry.

Shouldn’t the articles of incorporation make plain as to whether or not there are shareholders who are recipients of dividends and capital gains? You’ve got fifty sets of state corporation law and perhaps a half-dozen sorts of chartered enterprises in each, right? (‘business’, ‘not-for-profit’, ‘religious’, ‘cooperative’, ‘professional service’, ‘limited liability company’). Couldn’t a twenty page long annotated cheat sheet do in these circumstances?

TomD
TomD
Thursday, June 26, AD 2014 11:30pm

“Shouldn’t the articles of incorporation make plain as to whether or not there are shareholders who are recipients of dividends and capital gains?”
Well, yes, they do. By definition a corporation that pays dividends to its shareholders cannot be non-profit. In fact I have been told that non-profit corporations do not have shareholders, just a board of directors.
So that should be enough. Create your articles of incorporation as a non-profit, mail them off to the IRS so that they can expect future financial reports, and go to work on your non-profit work. No need to wait for IRS approval. No prior restraint by the IRS. Smell the freedom.
Of course, frauds could and would take advantage of this. No doubt. The IRS would still have the power to go after them. Corruption smells too, but at least the smell would no longer be coming from within the government.

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