Posted on 05/17/2013 4:38:51 AM PDT by Salgak
For former IRS staff and tax experts, the case confirms what they view as one of the agency's long-standing weaknesses: its inability to cope with the growing number of tax-exempt advocacy groups that appear to stretch the law to engage in politics.
With the IRS now under fire for its practices, campaign finance lawyers anticipate that the agency will shy away even more from regulating such organizations.
At the heart of the issue is the murky role occupied by nonprofit "social welfare" organizations, set up under Section 501(c)4 of the tax code, which are allowed under IRS regulations to engage in a certain amount of campaign activity, as long as politics is not their "primary" purpose. The groups pay no tax on the money they bring in. They can accept unlimited donations and, unlike political committees, can keep their contributors secret.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
And the lame liberal excuses just keep on comin’. I don’t suppose they feel that THEY have too many 501C’s out there!
By Monday, this story will be treated as old news by the MSM probably
The ‘Progressives’ complained about Citizens United but all it did was level the playing field for conservatives. Liberal groups have always gotten away with illegal activities because they knew how to play the system. They can have their George Soros’ types and it’s perfectly alright.
5 years from now...There are too many sick people...
There, fixed it.
What’s the big deal? “For profit” companies like G.E. pay nothing anyway!
Oops! Forgot /S...
Organizations that began as projects of Tides Center include:[1]
Campaign to Defend the Constitution
Higher Education Recruitment Consortium
People for the American Way
Pew Internet and American Life Project
Rockridge Institute
Social Venture Network
Urgent Action Fund
V-Day
The Tides Foundation
Current projects of Tides Center include:[2]
Apollo Alliance
Center for Genetics and Society
Childrens Partnership
The Condom Project
Honor the Earth
StopGlobalWarming.org
The Opportunity Agenda
Traction
To prevent duplication, please do not alter the published headline, thx.
Putting aside the criminal actions and hypocrisy of the Left in this matter for a moment, I believe that the whole 501c structure to be completely unconstitutional. It either amounts to a federal government establishment of religion, which is forbidden by the First Amendment, or, a clear violation of equal protection. AX THE INCOME TAX and the problem is solved.
So irs idiotic government regulation that was the problem?
Hmmm... well lets just put your health care into the hands of the same people who wrote those idiotic rules.
What could go wrong?
IRS writes the rules to implement the law that Congress writes. 501(c)4 has always seemed pretty clear to me ~ basically it’s GARBAGE
The unions just pour money into Dem campaigns and rules and restrictions don’t come into play much.
Oh...and the IRS never asks them anything.
We have to be careful when complaining about big corporations like GE paying nothing.
Corporate earnign need to be accounted for and anything earned and not re-invested or ditributed to shareholders is sitting there waiting to be taxed
By design, corporations SHOULD have $0 “income” leftover to tax. Even large corporations- ESPEICALLY large corporations.
All that money should be re-invested or distributed to shareholders as income.
In 1913, the 16th Amendment gave the government the power to levy an income tax, and saddled the American people with the most burdensome, intrusive and abuse-prone revenue-generating system imaginable. (It bears noting that the federal income tax is a product of the same Progressive Era of American history that gave us Prohibition.)
Given that it was imposed by constitutional amendment, one cannot argue that the income tax is unconstitutional per se. But certainly, it is at odds with the spirit, if not the letter, of many of our most basic constitutional rights.
Consider that the income tax system has the following attributes:
Notwithstanding our 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination, as well as our 9th Amendment right to privacy (see Roe v. Wade), the government requires us to provide a tax return signed under penalty of perjury, in which we are obligated to provide detailed testimony regarding every aspect of our financial activities and relationships, legal or otherwise.
Notwithstanding our 4th Amendment rights against search and seizure, any American citizen is subject at any time -- even in the complete absence of probable cause to an intrusive federal audit in which the government has the unmitigated right to demand and search our private papers and financial records.
Notwithstanding our 5th Amendment rights against seizure of our property without due process, the government can seize and hold our financial assets indefinitely without a trial.
The complexity of the Tax Code generally requires that Americans hire professional advice, often at significant expense, to help ensure compliance.
The Tax Code is so complex that its meaning is not always clear even to experts or employees of the federal government, and its enforcement may be subject to arbitrary interpretation by federal employees who may, in fact, disagree with each other.
The income tax requires citizens to bear the burden of preparing, maintaining, storing and recovering voluminous sets of records over a period of years, where such records otherwise have no useful purpose except to assist the government in enforcing the tax code against the citizen.
The Tax Code provides our federal legislators with a means of bestowing specifically targeted benefits on favored special interests.
IRS Official in Targeting Scandal Now Overseeing Obamacare Unit
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newswidget/irs-scandal-official-obamacare/2013/05/16/id/504962?promo_code=EB8D-1&utm_source=National_Review&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1#ixzz2TYIRiNfz
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!
And the 60 MILLION MEDICAL records the IRS STOLE.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/03/14/55707.htm
But the UK Daily Mail has the story.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05_02/Linchpins%20of%20Liberty%20IRS%20letter.pdf
If ever the case could be made for eliminating the current tax code and the IRS and replacing them with a simple flat tax which cannot be abused or used to oppress anyone it's now, while the abuses of the current situation are in everyone's eyes.
To not only eliminate just about all of the IRS, but free up over US$400 BILLION per year now spent on income tax compliance for more productive purposes.
We call thank McStain’s campaign finance reform.
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