Posted on 07/19/2004 8:37:15 AM PDT by ancient_geezer
| Hunt for Nonfilers Turns up Millionaires, Lawyers, CPAs |
| AccountingWEB.com - Jul-19-2004 - In a crackdown on people who have not filed their tax returns, state and federal officials are finding millionaires, medical professionals, lawyers and other heavy hitters. For example, the suspected list of nonfilers in California for 2002 includes 865 millionaires, 6,756 lawyers, 1,458 CPAs and 20,473 medical professionals, the Wall Street Journal reported. Taxpayers who still haven't filed "have some explaining to do," said Steve Westly, the state controller and chairman of the California Franchise Tax Board. Some people don’t file on time due to health problems or family crises. Tax-collection agencies also make mistakes, and disputes over whether someone who lives in one state needs to file in another are common. In some cases, nonfilers owe very little, said Ernest Dronenburg of Deloitte & Touche in San Diego and a former chairman of California's Franchise Tax Board. Officials from the Internal Revenue Service and state agencies are hunting down people who don’t file for years, a problem that costs billions and has been difficult to beat. Officials are turning to sophisticated document matching programs, information sharing and tax amnesty programs to recover back taxes. California has been a leader in chasing nonfilers. Officials there sent out notices to more than 700,000 individuals in the past year, asking for tax returns for 2002. In the previous year, the state sent out 647,580 notices to nonfilers asking for returns for 2001. The IRS will get the lists for “analysis and appropriate action,” an IRS spokesman said. Officials in New Jersey and New York have also had success sharing information and coordinating efforts with the IRS. If you haven’t filed, but think you’re OK because you’re owed a refund, think again. To get your money, you have to file within three years of the date your return was due. |
"A hand from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man's business; the eye of the federal inspector will be in every man's counting house....The law will of necessity have inquisical features, it will provide penalties, it will create complicated machinery. Under it men will be hauled into courts distant from their homes. Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar tribunals will constantly menace the tax payer. An army of federal inspectors, spies, and detectives will descend upon the state."
-- Virginian House Speaker Richard E. Byrd, 1910, predicting the consequences of an income tax.
If you would like to be added to this ping list let me know.
John Linder in the House & Saxby Chambliss Senate, offer a comprehensive bill to kill all income and payroll taxes outright, and provide a IRS free replacement in the form of a retail sales tax:
H.R.25, S.1493
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.Refer for additional information: http://www.fairtax.org & http://www.salestax.org
I assume these are mostly people with no W-2s. If you're on salary with a W2 sent to the IRS, you're unlikely to get away with not filing.
I would have thought that would also be true of form 1099s from investments and stock sales or sales of property. Don't these lawyers and rich professionals do any investing?
Until the income tax is illegal, PAY YOUR FRIGGIN' TAXES!!!
yet another tax ping
What a wonderful quote. Someone predicted what would happen, yet no one was able to hault the goverment's shake down of it's very citizens.
officials are finding millionaires, medical professionals, lawyers and other heavy hitters.
I'd be a millionare if I didnt have to pay taxes.
A claim for a federal income tax refund must be filed within 3 years of the date the return was filed or 2 years from the date the tax was paid, whichever is later. However, if the taxpayer did not file a timely return, the weight of the case law is that the taxpayer has only 2 years from the time the tax is deemed paid (usually the due date) to file a claim for refund. This article erroneously claims that a taxpayer has 3 years to claim a refund if the taxpayer did not file a return.
Lucky for Edwards he doesn't live in California.
Just more govt invasion into our lives. I hate paperwork and taxes are heck for me. If we had less govt we would have less paperwork and more privacy not to mention more freedom. If the govt had less money (lo and behold it would shrink). . . I know I am living in dreamland.
"In the previous year, the state sent out 647,580 notices to nonfilers asking for returns for 2001."
Send back a notice which states "To fulfil you request will require a $100 processing fee plus $10 for shipping and handling."
Until the income tax is illegal, PAY YOUR FRIGGIN' TAXES!!!
Seems, some never really get the message, however how can you blame them when the biggest problem is the half that perceive a freeride and keep the system going.
The Honorable James DeMint (R-SC)
United States House of Representatives
APRIL 5, 2001
- "There has been a shift in the relationship between individuals and government, he argues, such that fewer and fewer are paying taxes at the same time that more and more are receiving increasingly generous benefits. If it becomes the case that most voters do not bear a financial burden for this largess, then there will be little to restrain--and significant political incentives to encourage--the continued growth of government. "
70% of the voting public clamor for more from government looking for the top 40% of income earners/producers to foot the bill. That perception continues to grow ever stronger by eliminating even more participants from the Federal Individual Income Tax rolls as proposed in the tax reduction proposals through changes in personal exemption limits and other mechanisms such as the EITC.
From, Effective Federal Tax Rates 1979-2001
Effective Individual Federal Income Tax Rate (Percent of gross family income) Income Category 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995
1997
1999
2001Lowest Quintile 0.0 0.5 0.4 0.5 -0.6 -1.6 -1.6 -2.3 -4.4 -5.2 -5.2 -5.6 Second Quintile 4.1 4.8 3.8 4.0 3.2 2.9 2.9 2.3 2.0 1.8 1.7 0.3 Middle Quintile 7.5 8.3 6.7 6.6 5.8 6.0 5.8 5.4 5.3 5.6 5.0 3.8
There is a big disconnect between what people perceive they pay, and reality.
Where Congress plays both ends against the middle; hiding the real burden in inflation, higher prices on all goods and services, lower takehome pay, lower return on investment, and higher interest rates. All keeping the poor right where they are and pushing for more freebees.
Consider that 15.3% SS/Medicare tax on the 1st $75K of wages/self-employment income, plus the 6% Federal/State Unemployment tax, all of which are but a portion of the effect of federal taxes embedded the price of all products we purchase. Taken together with the Individual tax rates above we all pay :
| Effective Total Federal Tax Rate (Percent of gross income) | |||||||||||||
| Income Category | 1977 | 1979 | 1981 | 1983 | 1985 | 1987 | 1989 | 1991 | 1993 | 1995 | 1997 | 1999 | 2001 |
| All Families | 22.2 | 22.4 | 20.4 | 20.9 | 20.9 | 21.6 | 21.5 | 21.5 | 22.0 | 22.6 | 22.9 | 22.9 | 21.5 |
Data from IRS collections statistics and The Bureau of Economic Analysis as compiled in tabular form by the Congressional Budget Office.
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1545&from=4&sequence=0
The Intent of the individual income tax is for political and social control not revenue collection. The Individual Income tax is holds every person in the country perpetual legal jeopardy, as well as distort their perceptions as to the burdens imposed by government on them.
| "As a matter of fact, what the income tax does — and this is the debate that I think we always try to get into in order to let you and him fight, see — and the people of this country are led down a path where the actual control of their resources, which in the end is the control over their will, is handed off to the government." . . . "The government then manipulates that will in order to destroy the freedom of our electoral system through the income tax structure, and we call the resulting slavery a free system." "In point of fact, it is not as the founders understood, and the only way to restore real freedom is to give people back control over the income that they earn so that they won‘t, at the voting booth and in other phony issues, be subject to that manipulation." |
Time to end the shell game.
I hate paperwork and taxes are heck for me. If we had less govt we would have less paperwork and more privacy not to mention more freedom. If the govt had less money (lo and behold it would shrink). . . I know I am living in dreamland.
The means exists to change it, however it is up to us to push for it.
- "The income tax in effect makes us vassals to the government – the politicians decide how much income we can keep. No mere “reform” of this slave tax, such as flattening the rate, can correct its fundamental denial of control over our own money. Only the abolition of the income tax itself will restore the basic American principle that our income is both our own money and our own private business - not the government's."
- "Replacing the income tax with a national sales tax would rejuvenate independence and responsibility in our citizens. True economic liberty and moral revival go hand in hand."
- "A national sales tax would also put the American citizen back in control of national fiscal policy. The best way to curtail government spending is to cut taxes, because they can’t spend what they don’t get. But with a sales tax, we could deny funds to a spendthrift government – and give ourselves a tax cut – whenever we make the private choice to alter our spending and saving habits."
H.R.25, S.1493
A bill to promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national retail sales tax to be administered primarily by the States.
Refer for additional information: http://www.fairtax.org & http://www.salestax.org
Thomas Hobbes made it clear in Leviathan it is fairer to tax people on what they extract from the economy, as roughly measured by their consumption, than to tax them on what they produce for the economy, as roughly measured by their income.
Send back a notice which states "To fulfil you request will require a $100 processing fee plus $10 for shipping and handling."
Being retired and little in the way of income to be taxed, I got one of those notices, and was sorely tempted ;O)
Looks like this year the IRS is shotgunning everyone that hasn't filed for awhile, whatever the reason.
A sort of people friendly reach-out-an-touch someone approach appears to be in effect.
Bump for tax sanity.
Call you Congresscritters and get them to cosponsor HR 25.
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