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The IRS's problem with minorities (targeting African-American and Hispanic taxpayers?)
CNN ^ | 12/02/10 | Shawn Tully

Posted on 12/02/2010 2:58:12 PM PST by Libloather

The IRS's problem with minorities
By Shawn Tully, senior editor-at-large
December 2, 2010: 10:42 AM ET

FORTUNE -- Is the Internal Revenue Service targeting African-American and Hispanic taxpayers? That's the conclusion of a new study provided exclusively to Fortune titled "IRS Enforcement's Impact on Minority Communities," conducted by Thomas M. Evans, CEO of TaxLifeboat, a firm that advises taxpayers on resolving their problems with the IRS.

Evans stresses strongly that the disproportionate number of IRS actions against minorities isn't intentional. Rather, he charges, it's the result of overly rigid, highly-automated enforcement policies that waste taxpayer money by pursuing low-earners who either can't pay, or owe virtually nothing.

Worse, it pushes minority workers who were paying some, if not all, of their tax burden from mainstream jobs into the shadowy cash economy. "The IRS enforcement actions drive workers and revenue out of the system," warns Evans. "Once people are caught in that mill, their life changes, and they're forced to stay in the underclass."

The IRS doesn't specify the ethnic background of Americans it hits with enforcement actions. To explore the issue, Evans examined the 1,000 zip codes where the IRS had filed the largest number of liens from July 2009 to July 2010. He then mined the 2000 Census, the most recent source available, to determine the racial makeup of those areas. Evans found that, on average, the populations of those 1,000 locales with the nation's highest level of tax enforcement were 22% African-American and 24% Hispanic. That's approximately double the proportion of those minorities in entire country.

(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: africanamerican; hispanic; irs; taxes
Hey, they have to target someone. Could it have anything to do with this? - Democrats Have a Problem with Minority Candidates
1 posted on 12/02/2010 2:58:14 PM PST by Libloather
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To: Libloather

Wesley Snipes is in jail, yet Timmy Geithner gets to be Treasury Secretary.


2 posted on 12/02/2010 3:00:01 PM PST by dfwgator (Congratulations to Josh Hamilton - AL MVP)
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To: Libloather

Well, I suspect they go after Hispanics because many are illegals or tax dodgers. And the go after blacks because many of them have been taught to sucker the government any way they can.

Same reason there are a disproportionate number of blacks in prison. Not because of their race or skin color, but because of their culture. Which is largely the result of a welfare system that encourages broken families and criminal activities.


3 posted on 12/02/2010 3:02:01 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius.)
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To: Libloather

In my line of work I have an opportunity to view the tax returns for people from all walks of life. I can say without hesitation that it is rare that you find a return from these two communities that is not fraudulent. The primary problem is that they list as “dependents” everyone and anything the can. I say Hispanic return yesterday where he had listed eight “dependents” but only had one child.....LOL.


4 posted on 12/02/2010 3:02:12 PM PST by northwinds
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To: Libloather
IRS does 30% of its audits on people who claim Earned Income Tax Credits.

The "risk" is $50 billion at the greatest.

The other $16 trillion in taxable income is given only 70% of the audits.

Clue about the IDs on the EITC folks.

5 posted on 12/02/2010 3:03:26 PM PST by muawiyah (GIT OUT THE WAY ~ REPUBLICANS COMIN' THROUGH)
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To: Libloather

Several years ago, a friend who is a nationally published investigative journalist, invited me to go along to his Atlanta interview of two female IRS whistleblowers.
Among serious allegations of MAJOR sexual harassment by male superiors – who were routinely promoted to higher positions and/or transferred in order to display their genitals to NEW female subordinates – we were told of the “Dialing for Dollars” program then – and apparently STILL – a routine practice.

Any agent behind in his/her “collections QUOTAS” (which we’ve been assured by IRS do NOT exist) would rummage their “inventory” (their quaint name for taxpayers in their grasp – er – jurisdiction) for lower middle income individuals with foreign or Hispanic surnames. The agent would phone these individuals, advising them that errors in their returns indicated that they STILL owed the IRS money. The amounts were kept at or under $500.00 on the basis that it would cost the taxpayer considerably more in funds and/or time away from a low to moderate income job to contest it.

In 9 cases out of 10, the taxpayer meekly sent a check just as the “massa” in Washington has conditioned us to do.

Is this a great country or what???

PS: One of those whistleblowers, Sherry Jackson, is ill and in prison for some trumped up charge for having the AUDACITY to speak out.


6 posted on 12/02/2010 3:07:30 PM PST by Dick Bachert (11/2 was a good start. Onward to '12. U Pubbies be strong or next time we send in the libertarians!)
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To: northwinds
Way back in the good old days the Battalion Commander had the college grads do the taxes for all the linedoggies.

So, I did HUNDREDS of filings ~ and after verifying that these guys were actually sending money home to their mothers/brothers/sisters I was fairly confident they'd completed everything else correctly, then I'd do the math.

As a rule Hispanics sent as much as $100 a month "back home" and that was when the E1-E5 pay was pretty tight. The black guys didn't send as much. The hillbillies sent a little less.

I'd had a chance to work a month and a half that year before induction and guys were coming around saying "Hey, brother, you make that much? " and I'd tell them "Yeah" and they'd say "Can you tell me what I gotta' do to get a good income".

It was a humbling experience. So, whatever it was you said, my experience has, in general, been different.

Hey, we were also paying a 10% surcharge on our taxes to finance the Nam. Maybe it was just that I was in better sort of crowd ya think? ~ United States Army Infantry

7 posted on 12/02/2010 3:10:55 PM PST by muawiyah (GIT OUT THE WAY ~ REPUBLICANS COMIN' THROUGH)
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To: Dick Bachert

Trillions and trillions of dollars out the door via the fed yet we worry about someone making a few hundred dollars off the books.

What a freaking joke we have become. Pathetic and sad. We bust balls of people barely making it yet applaud the thieves on wall street and investment banking who are destroing this nation wholesale.

I can’t wait for the collapse - we deserve it entirely at this ponit with this disgusting government we have.


8 posted on 12/02/2010 3:11:09 PM PST by GlockThe Vote (Who needs Al Queda to worry about when we have Obama?)
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To: GlockThe Vote
Not to push too hard on the issue but I believe Newt Gingrich was Speaker when Congress voted to increase IRS audits of EITC claims.

If he wasn't somebody bring us up to speed on who it was that led Congress to vote to distract IRS from auditing the rich by auditing the poor more heavily?

9 posted on 12/02/2010 3:46:08 PM PST by muawiyah (GIT OUT THE WAY ~ REPUBLICANS COMIN' THROUGH)
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To: dfwgator

“Wesley Snipes is in jail, yet Timmy Geithner gets to be Treasury Secretary.”

Never mind Charlie Rangel...The Man is out to get them!


10 posted on 12/02/2010 5:03:24 PM PST by kearnyirish2
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To: northwinds

I used to volunteer to help low-income taxpayers prepare their returns at a local library years ago; one group (single/widowed women in their fifties and sixties) often had no dependents (and hadn’t changed their witholdings to reflect grown children now on their own), and when you completed the form for them, They would look at the amount they owed (not large amounts) and just drop it in the trash on the way out. They all fit into one of the ethinc groups mentioned in this article.


11 posted on 12/02/2010 5:14:00 PM PST by kearnyirish2
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To: Libloather

COMPLETE BS “NEWS”


12 posted on 12/02/2010 8:38:24 PM PST by FormerACLUmember (Character is defined by how we treat those who society says have no value.)
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