In 1996 Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the harassment of Tea Party groups seeking tax exempt status, was head of the enforcement division of the Federal Elections Commission(FEC). That year Al Salvi was the Republican nominee for the US Senate from Illinois, his Democrat opponent was then congressman Dick Durbin.
During the final weeks of the campaign Salvi loaned himself over a million dollars to buy ads in the Chicago media market. This in turn prompted the Democrat party’s campaign arms to file complaints with the FEC and in kind the FEC, specifically Lois Lerner, filed charges against Al Salvi.
That is when Mr. Salvi contends Lois Lerner made him the following offer, “Promise me you will never run for office again, and we’ll drop this case.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-30 03:21:452013-05-30 03:21:45IRS Lerner to Politician: ‘If You Don’t Ever Run Again, We’ll Drop our Case’
Individually, Americans do not deserve to be subservient to such a fear-mongering, intimidating and powerful agency as the Internal Revenue Service; but collectively, we do. Let’s look at it.
Since the 1791 ratification of our Constitution, until well into the 1920s, federal spending as a percentage of gross domestic product never exceeded 5 percent, except during war. Today federal spending is 25 percent of our GDP. State and local government spending is about 15 percent of the GDP. That means government spends more than 40 cents of each dollar we earn. If we add government’s regulatory burden, which is simply a disguised form of taxation, the government take is more than 50 percent of what we produce.
In order to squeeze out of us half of what we produce, a government tax collection agency must be ruthless and able to put the fear of God into its citizens. The IRS has mastered that task. Congress has given it powers that would be deemed criminal if used by others. For example, the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment protects Americans against self-incrimination and being forced to bear witness against oneself. That’s precisely what one does when he is compelled to sign his income tax form. However, a Fifth Amendment argument can’t be used as a defense in a court of law. The IRS will counter that you voluntarily provided the information on your tax return.
Photo Credit: YouTube Like dumber follows dumb, the scandal of politicized IRS tax enforcement has been followed by calls for a “special prosecutor.” Republicans are predictably leading this call against a Democratic Administration, but this is one case in which the GOP should hope it doesn’t get its way.
The case for a special counsel is that Attorney General Eric Holder can’t be trusted to investigate his Administration, and that the Administration will stonewall Congress. We don’t trust Mr. Holder either, but letting him pass the buck to a special prosecutor is doing him a favor. This scandal is best handled in Congressional hearings that educate the public in the next year rather than wait two or three years for potential indictments.
While it’s possible some T-men or White House officials broke the law, the heart of the matter so far is the extent of the selective tax enforcement against conservatives and why auditors thought that was kosher. Perhaps they were taking orders from their IRS bosses, or maybe they were responding to Democratic Senators, but whatever the case the public deserves to know.
Photo Credit: Bill Mahon Democrats were writing obituaries for California’s GOP after winning a supermajority in the state legislature last November, thus gaining veto-proof power to raise taxes. But their legislative lock may have slipped after this week’s special election in which Republican farmer Andy Vidak appears to have defeated a Democrat—in a heavily Democratic senate district—who had championed high-speed rail and a higher minimum wage.
If Mr. Vidak wins an outright majority—late Friday, he led with 49.8% of the vote and provisional ballots were still being counted—his victory would put Republicans two senate seats short of reclaiming their veto on tax hikes. But more important, the election has exposed the Democrats’ soft underbelly in California’s Central Valley—a no man’s land in state politics—and given Republicans a rallying point.
“This is the shot in the arm that shows that we are doing some things right,” California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House GOP whip, says.
Photo Credit: Vimeo By Fox News. First she refused to testify. Now Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the tax agency scandal, is refusing to resign, according to a top Republican senator.
Sources confirmed to Fox News earlier Thursday that Lerner, the head of the IRS division that oversaw the unit targeting conservative groups, had been placed on administrative leave, with pay.
But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, claimed she was only put in that status after refusing to step down.
He said the commissioner was in his right to demand her resignation, and said taxpayers should not continue to pay her salary indefinitely.
“My understanding is the new acting IRS commissioner asked for Ms. Lerner’s resignation, and she refused to resign. She was then put on administrative leave instead,” Grassley said in a statement. “The IRS owes it to taxpayers to resolve her situation quickly. The agency needs to move on to fix the conditions that led to the targeting debacle.” Read more from this story HERE.
By Eliana Johnson. Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service’s director of exempt organizations, has been placed on administrative leave, according to a source in the agency’s Cincinnati office.
Lerner on Thursday afternoon sent an e-mail to employees in the exempt-organizations division she oversees stating, “Due to the events of recent days, I am on administrative leave starting today. An announcement will be made shortly informing you who will be acting while I am on administrative leave. I know all of you will continue to support EO’s mission during these difficult times.” Read more from this story HERE.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-24 03:00:422016-04-11 11:20:29IRS Official on Leave Refused to Resign, Says GOP Senator
Photo Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott ApplewhiteBy Mark Hemingway. Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with the tax agency’s growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS harassed hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups for over two years, Lerner has been criticized for a number of untruths—including the revelation that she apparently lied about planting a question at an American Bar Association conference where she first publicly acknowledged IRS misconduct…
[P]rior to joining the IRS, Lerner’s tenure as head of the Enforcement Office at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was marked by what appears to be politically motivated harassment of conservative groups.
Lerner was appointed head of the FEC’s enforcement division in 1986 and stayed in that position until 2001. In the late 1990s, the FEC launched an onerous investigation of the Christian Coalition, ultimately costing the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours in lost work. The investigation was notable because the FEC alleged that the Christian Coalition was coordinating issue advocacy expenditures with a number of candidates for office. Aside from lacking proof this was happening, it was an open question whether the FEC had the authority to bring these charges.
James Bopp Jr., who was lead counsel for the Christian Coalition at the time, tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD the Christian Coalition investigation was egregious and uncalled for. “We felt we were being singled out, because when you handle a case with 81 depositions you have a pretty good argument you’re getting special treatment. Eighty-one depositions! Eighty-one! From Ralph Reed’s former part-time secretary to George H.W. Bush. It was mind blowing,” he said.
Lois Lerner: ‘I have not done anything wrong’ at IRS
By Susan Ferrechio. The head of the Internal Revenue Service division that targeted conservative groups told a congressional committee Wednesday that she did nothing wrong and is not to blame for the wrongdoing, but then invoked her Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and refused to answer lawmakers’ questions.
Lois Lerner was a witness lawmakers hoped would help finally answer the fundamental questions about who authorized the IRS to target the Tea Party and other conservative groups opposed to President Obama ahead of last year’s election.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., dismissed Lerner from the hearing after she invoked the Fifth Amendment. He said he may recall Lerner to testify at a future hearing, saying she may have waived her Fifth Amendment rights when she first delivered an opening statement proclaiming her innocence. To force Lerner to return and testify, Issa refused to adjourn the hearing at the end of the day, instead gaveling it into recess.
“I am looking into the possibility of recalling her,” Issa said. Read more from this story HERE.
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Rep. Gowdy Grills Former IRS Commissioner
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-23 03:35:092016-04-11 11:20:32IRS’s Lerner Had History of Harassment, Inappropriate Religious Inquiries at FEC (+videos)
Photo Credit: Adam GlanzmanAnyone still question whether or not IRS abuse exists? The IRS has been too onerous and too powerful for much too long. But you haven’t seen anything yet! As Obamacare unfolds, tax collection will become subordinate to information gathering but will remain the mechanism for intimidation and bullying used by the ‘service’. Recently they asked us, some of us, for the content of our prayers. Here’s what’s in my prayers Mr. Taxman, I pray to God that the IRS dies as we know it and is replaced with a simple fair tax structure requiring little if any oversight.
Who is tasked with ensuring that Obamacare is implemented? That’s right, the IRS. Obamacare was designed as the most powerful weapon to date to be used by the government against the people! The House of Representatives has voted 37 times to repeal Obamacare but the Speaker would have us believe that nothing can be done, ”its the law of the land”, another martini please. The fact is that defunding Obamacare or ‘Obamatax’ is possible. If we don’t defund and then repeal Obamacare soon, great hardship awaits us all, compliments of the IRS!
No one in support of or supported by the Obama administration purports to know much of anything about the various scandals they’ve created, especially not our darling President! Be it the present IRS scandal, Fast and Furious or Benghazi, Mr. 0 says he’ll get to the bottom of ”it” so that ”it” never happens again. What this means is that ‘low’ and ‘high’ level officials in his administration whether guilty or not of wrong doing will be re-assigned, promoted, offered early retirement or otherwise NOT be held accountable in any meaningful way for anything. This while innocent lives are lost due to the ignorance, ineptitude and corruption of the fools running Washington DC. What will it take to alert Americans smitten with this ‘cool’ President to the fact that he and his socialist crooks are burning this country to the ground! America is changing into something we’ll all regret if we don’t reverse course soon!
Which rights were sabotaged by the IRS? Surely rights declared in the first and fourth amendments to the US Constitution were. In the first amendment, freedom of speech was sabotaged. Oh we could speak, but an IRS audit was initiated based solely upon key words we used such as ‘Tea party’ and ‘Patriot’. These and other triggers were used to target specific conservative groups and individuals for audits and other nefarious purposes, any of which should be abhorred. As for the fourth amendment, the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures was sabotaged. In the electronic age though, there’s no need for any IRS goon to come knocking at your door. Agents simply commit sabotage through the internet or postal service.
Many of us paying attention to the various scandals brought to us by the Obama administration may be asking ourselves, what’s next? Which new scandal will erupt and temporarily overshadow the previous one? Don’t people working at the IRS recognize what we see? All of this results from either stupidity and ignorance, or worse. We the people aren’t going to allow the destruction of America at the hands of foolish, corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-22 02:33:522016-04-11 11:20:37Exclusive: Inalienable Rights Sabotaged
Photo Credit: Daily Caller By Charles C. Johnson. The “charity” run by President Barack Obama’s half-brother that was fast-tracked for IRS tax-exempt status is based at a Virginia UPS store, according to its website.
The organization’s IRS filings list another Virginia address that is actually a drug rehab center where the foundation does not appear ever to have been based.
The Barack H. Obama Foundation is run by Abon’go “Roy” Malik Obama, the half-brother of Barack Obama.
As first reported by The Daily Caller, the foundation was speedily approved for IRS exemption by Lois Lerner, the IRS senior official at the center of the targeting of conservative organizations that have waited over two years to receive tax exempt status.
The charity was even given retroactive tax-exempt status despite never having bothered to apply for it. And its history of soliciting donations before receiving tax-exempt status was apparently overlooked. Read more from this story HERE.
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Ron Paul: Fix IRS by shutting it ‘once and for all’
By David Sherfinski. Former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas called the recent IRS fiasco troubling — but writes that the only way Congress can protect the freedoms of Americans from a long pattern of suspected IRS abuse is to “shutter the doors” of the agency “once and for all.”
The longtime GOP congressman writes that IRS agents in the 1930s were essentially “hit squads” against opponents of the New Deal, and that allegations of IRS abuse spanned the administrations of Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, Clinton and George W. Bush.
“The bipartisan tradition of using the IRS as a tool to harass political opponents suggests that the problem is deeper than just a few ‘rogue’ IRS agents — or even corruption within one, two, three or many administrations”…
Photo Credit: ReutersSenate investigators accuse Apple of wiring together a complicated system to shield billions of dollars in international profits from both U.S. and foreign tax collectors.
A report released ahead of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s inaugural Capitol Hill appearance Tuesday alleges the tech giant took advantage of numerous U.S. tax loopholes and avoided U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore, taxable income between 2009 and 2012 — a characterization Apple flatly rejects.
The bipartisan Senate probe also charges for the first time that Apple’s long established foreign entities, based in Ireland, don’t actually have tax-resident status there or anywhere else. The company conducts most of its international business in the European country to take advantage of lower tax rates, according to the congressional report.
Despite the findings, lawmakers behind the inquiry did not describe Apple’s tax conduct as illegal — but they sharply rebuked the Cupertino, California-based tech heavyweight on Monday for its tactics.
Photo Credit: kenteegardinRupert Murdoch took some heat for observing on Twitter, “Growing IRS scandal makes perfect case for flat tax and abolition all deductions. Nothing could be fairer and abuse free.”
Several responses took Murdoch to task because the abusive treatment of certain groups applying for tax-exempt status, based on their politics, doesn’t have any direct relationship with the progressive income tax system, or plans to replace it.
But if I might be a bit more charitable to Murdoch, I think he was trying to make the broader case that a Flat Tax system would greatly reduce the size and power of the IRS. If his suggestion is taken literally, and all deductions are abolished, it follows that no one would be applying for any sort of tax-exempt status at all. One of the complaints raised by the groups targeted in the IRS scandal is that it put them at a competitive disadvantage against liberal groups, which sailed right through the Tax Exempt Organizations unit and secured approval in a matter of weeks – even when they were actually violating tax law at the time, as in the case of the Barack H. Obama Foundation, run by the President’s half-brother. This isn’t just a scandal about those who were given a hard time; it’s also about those who weren’t.
