GUCCI GULCH:TAX REFORM HELL
WANT TO CHANGE THE CALCULUS IN MALFUNCTION JUNCTION? VISIT www.votr.org.
Sign the PETITION and pass it on.
When they feel the HEAT, they see the light!
Posted on 04/18/2002 8:30:08 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
April 18, 2002
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
When Bill Clinton left office, conservative gadfly Larry Klayman was locked in combat over Internal Revenue Service audits of the Clinton administration's enemies--including Klayman's Judicial Watch organization. Surprisingly, nothing has changed during 15 months of Republican rule, according to court papers just made public.
The unsealed documents reveal that the IRS is still pressing Judicial Watch for truckloads of records and that the Justice Department has rejected Klayman's bid for a criminal investigation into alleged past misuse of the government's taxing arm. In rhetoric once reserved for the Clintons, Judicial Watch's pleading refers to its ''retaliatory, politically-motivated, and unconstitutional audit.'' In a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft also made public, Klayman wrote he ''would have expected this from the Clinton Administration.''
Klayman is no more popular today in the government's upper reaches than he was before Jan. 20, 2001. He is viewed by the Justice Department as the most difficult of the parties suing to force release of information about Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force. (''I don't know what we are going to do with this Klayman,'' a government lawyer told me.)
More than an obnoxious, litigious lawyer is at stake. The Bush team is turning a blind eye to possible use of the IRS for political purposes, remembered as one of Richard M. Nixon's most wretched sins. There were no secret tapes in Clinton's White House, as there were in Nixon's, to prove IRS misuse. Nevertheless, a string of circumstantial evidence indicates trouble with the Clintons often was followed by a visit from the tax man.
Nine days after the inauguration of George W. Bush, Judicial Watch formally asked for a ''criminal investigation'' of the IRS. Klayman wanted to meet with the new attorney general, but he had no more luck seeing Ashcroft than he would have had with Janet Reno. He was referred to Michael Chertoff, assistant attorney general heading the criminal division, but complained in his March 9 letter to Ashcroft that he had heard nothing.
On March 13, Chertoff wrote Klayman that ''after careful consideration, we have determined that a criminal investigation of this matter is not warranted.'' He passed the complaint to Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility to check on charges of misconduct against the department, but on April 1 it reported to Klayman no basis for an investigation.
The Justice Department's stonewall fortifies considerations of privacy and lack of congressional interest in protecting the IRS from scrutiny. The IRS never has explained its intrusion during the Clinton administration's first year when the new president reshaped the White House travel office. Two days after White House sources suggested kickbacks were paid to travel office functionaries from charter airlines, a charter used by the White House--Ultrair of Nashville, Tenn.--was visited by IRS agents for an unannounced audit.
In 1996, the conservative (and anti-Clinton) Western Journalism Center in Los Angeles was hit by an IRS audit from which it never fully recovered. Judicial Watch filed a complaint in behalf of the WJC on May 13, 1998, and the IRS audit of Klayman's organization was launched Oct. 9, 1998. Also swiftly visited with audits were Clinton accusers Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers, former travel office chief Billy Dale, and even Katherine Prudhomme, who once bothered Vice President Al Gore by asking about Broaddrick--plus assorted conservative organizations.
Burdensome demands for records covering its full seven-year history and for the political affiliations of its donors put Judicial Watch in a special class. Its lawsuit names as a defendant M. Peter Breslan, an IRS agent quoted in the court papers as asking Judicial Watch: ''What do you expect when you sue the president?''
To all this, an IRS spokesman responded to me that audits are derived from ''tax returns, based on how they score.'' Larry Klayman is a prickly troublemaker uncongenial to party and ideological establishments. But it is not necessary to love him to worry about misuse of the IRS. Congress has not managed to conduct a real investigation of this serious problem for democracy, and now the Ashcroft Justice Department is begging off as well.
Immigration -- Campaign Finance Reform -- Tax Reform, etc., etc., etc...
Tell us all -- again -- how DIFFERENT and BETTER things were going to be in the new, improved Bush Administration!
Those critical of GW just don't understand, right!
Or is this gang simply proving again -- as if we needed more proof -- that the main difference between Demos and Pubbies is that the Demos want state socialist tyranny NOW: The Pubbies are content to wait a day or so...
Surprisingly, nothing has changed during 15 months of Republican rule
Surprisingly?!?
The solution to the problem of IRS abuse is to eliminate the IRS.
Keeping the IRS is like putting lines of cocaine in front of an addict. Those guys in DC are addicted to the power the IRS gives them.
GUCCI GULCH:TAX REFORM HELL
WANT TO CHANGE THE CALCULUS IN MALFUNCTION JUNCTION? VISIT www.votr.org.
Sign the PETITION and pass it on.
When they feel the HEAT, they see the light!
Can you guys think of any way to abolish the IRS?
Quit paying their salaries maybe?
Like in repealing the income, payroll and gift/estate tax statues then defunding the IRS, as John Linder (R Texas) offers in his comprehensive bill to kill all income and payroll taxes outright, and provide a revenue neutral replacement:
H.R.2525
SPONSOR: Rep Linder, John (introduced 07/17/2001)
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.
See these websites for more details and to help get it enacted:
Now we can add this issue to the other corruption issues to which Ashcroft has turned a blind eye.
So, where are the Bush defenders on this one? Can they say anything here, other than the usual Klayman bash?
To all this, an IRS spokesman responded to me that audits are derived from ''tax returns, based on how they score.''
Wonder if he just forgot about the infamous anonymous tip that can set the hounds chasing.
Be real nice to that ex-spouse, girlfriend, significant other? or that next door neighbor who has this problem with your dog the next time you should happen to run into them.
Every concerned citizen here at FR who supports MASSIVE TAX REFORM needs to be at as many Congressional Town Hall Meetings as possible and PUBLICLY ask your congresscritter something like the following:
"Except for a brief period surrounding the War Between the States, for America's first 126 years – statistically, perhaps the most prosperous and free period in our history -- we funded the legitimate and Constitutional functions of government with INDIRECT taxes on consumption. For our first 126 years we held to the tax system the Founders intended here. Explain to these good folks why you (do/do not -- as the case warrants) support MASSIVE TAX REFORM which would REPLACE the UNFAIR and INCOMPREHENSIBLE income tax with a PAPERLESS, FLAT, FAIR tax and rid us of the most dangerous agency in government today, the IRS?"
Remain at the mike and DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY WITH THE OLD POLITICAL TRICK OF ANSWERING ANOTHER QUESTION.
IF YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE UNFORTUNATES WHOSE CRITTER DOES NOT HOLD PUBLIC MEETINGS OR ASKS YOU TO SUBMIT QUESTIONS ON CARDS (SO HIS STAFF CAN THROW OUT THE TOUGH ONES!), YOU NEED A NEW CONGRESSCRITTER!
You have accomplished several important goals with your question:
You’ve put the congresscritter on notice that he is dealing with that most dangerous constituent. One with and actual functioning BRAIN;
You’ve let HIM know that YOU know about the alternative to the system he will – despite the soothing noises he may make in public at the end of the day – fight like a cornered animal to save as he knows that the tax code is the source of most all of his power to social engineer, reward his pals and punish his enemies;
And -- MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL – you have just EDUCATED YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS IN THE AUDIENCE, MANY OF WHOM WILL WANT TO KNOW MORE. Be sure you bump them to a TAX REFORM WEB SITE (www.votr.org comes to mind).
A few thousand of us doing this on a regular basis will send 'em the desired message. When Newt was my representative, he LOVED this question (NOT!). Johnny Isakson – his anointed successor – loves it almost as much (NOT!)
I’m open to ANY suggestions to strengthen this sucker. I’ve tried to hit the following elements:
1. A little HISTORY. Most Americans think we’ve had the damn income tax FOREVER. They need to know we have not.
2. An emphasis on the CONSTITUTIONAL aspects of government. Most Americans don’t think about THIS one either.
3. The word “unfair” connected with the income tax is a key hot button term according survey results. They’re probably correct.
Unless you live in a district populated by brain dead, lethargic former residents of the old Soviet Union, if you’ve never been applauded for anything else in your life, this question should get you some (and perhaps even a few whistles and a little foot-stomping as well.
GO GET ‘EM!
sinkspur will be over here shortly.
Check in at www.salestax.org to get more details on how that would work.
I collected state sales taxes for a number of years (before widespread use of computers) and a federal tax would have amounted to one more line on the paper form. Computers would make it a matter of a few keystrokes.
Gingrich suggested we could then give those terminated IRS people advanced weapons training, an M-16 and put them along our southern border.
Hey -- works for me.
IT’S ABOUT P O W E R AND C O N T R O L!!
SIGN THE PETITION AT HTTP://WWW.VOTR.ORG. Then find out how you can do more to end America’s peculiar SPRING MADNESS.
Yes, of course. Consider, smidge, what all currently has to be enforced. Consider the invasions to which we are all subject necessary to enforce our current mess.
Under an nrst, the enforcement agency is already in place - state taxing authority. There is far less desire to cheat, and far fewer ways to cheat under an nrst. It's fair. It's easy. The potential gain from cheating is miniscule.
Cheats will always try to cheat. Oh well. But the nrst is simple, fair, and easy to administer. There is no need for an agency to pry into your credit card purchase, your bank accounts, or your spending habits. Nobody will ask you how you afford that car. Nobody will be able to seize your property or freedom for being unable to decipher a law that even the enforcers don't understand.
Yes, an enforcemnt agency will exist. But consider what it is that they'll enforce. ... grin.
A long line of trees and some rope would be a good start. Or maybe we should go back to the days when the entire society viewed tax agents (collectors) as scum of the earth, deserving only misery and loneliness.
"The solution to the problem of IRS abuse is to eliminate the IRS."
"Keeping the IRS is like putting lines of cocaine in front of an addict. Those guys in DC are addicted to the power the IRS gives them."
Congratulations! You nailed it!! Too bad John and Jane Q. Public are too damned stupid to realize these simple truths. Until the ignorant masses rise up and demand change there will be none.
Get a Libertarian candidate to re-introduce the Flat Tax, and National Sales Tax debate into the 2004 Election rhetoric.
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