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IRS Ends Decades-Long Practice of Visiting Taxpayers’ Homes Unannounced

The Internal Revenue Service announced Monday that it would cease sending federal agents to make unannounced visits to taxpayer homes, citing safety concerns for both the employee and the taxpayer.

“These visits created extra anxiety for taxpayers already wary of potential scam artists,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said in a news release. “At the same time, the uncertainty around what IRS employees faced when visiting these homes created stress for them as well.”

The federal agency began making unscheduled visits to households and businesses in the 1950s to collect unpaid taxes and resolve unfiled tax returns. But in recent years, Werfel said increased security concerns “on multiple fronts,” including frauds posing as IRS agents bombarding taxpayers, confusing local law enforcement, and hazardous situations, led to the decision to end such in-person visits.

“This is the right thing to do and the right time to end it,” he added. (Read more from “IRS Ends Decades-Long Practice of Visiting Taxpayers’ Homes Unannounced” HERE)

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U.S. Taxpayers Will Fund Lion’s Share of UN Budget Again in 2016

American taxpayers will once again be liable for more than one-fifth of the United Nations’ regular budget next year, as well as more than one-quarter of the much-larger peacekeeping budget – a total of approximately $2,957,000,000.

The U.N. General Assembly just before Christmas approved a regular operating budget of $5.4 billion for the 2016-17 period. (That budget is calculated biannually.) Of the $2.7 billion earmarked for 2016, the U.S. will account for 22 percent, or $594 million.

Of the separate peacekeeping budget – $8.27 billion for the year ending June 30 – the U.S. is liable for 28.5783 percent, or $2.363 billion. Combined, the two U.S. contributions amount to just under $3 billion.

In actual fact the full extent of U.S. funding for the U.N. system will be considerably more than that: The $2.957 billion figure comprises the U.S. “assessed contributions” to the two main budgets, but the U.S. in addition provides much more in “voluntary contributions” to a range of U.N. agencies.

(The last time the administration was obliged by law to provide Congress with a full breakdown, the total for fiscal year 2010 was $7.69 billion. The reporting requirement fell away in 2011.) (Read more from “U.S. Taxpayers Will Fund Lion’s Share of UN Budget Again in 2016” HERE)

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Half of Obamacare Subsidy Recipients Owe the IRS

Photo Credit: (AP / Susan WalshBy Justin Green. As many as 3.4 million people who received Obamacare subsidies may owe refunds to the federal government, according to an estimate by a tax preparation firm.

H&R Block is estimating that as many as half of the 6.8 million people who received insurance premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act benefited from subsidies that were too large, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

“The ACA is going to result in more confusion for existing clients, and many taxpayers may well be very disappointed by getting less money and possibly even owing money,” the president of a tax preparation and education school told the Journal. (Read more about the Obamacare subsidy recipients HERE)

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Feds Looking for Company to Run its Obamacare Computers

By Jeryl Bier. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is looking for vendors to run its “National Data Warehouse,” a database for “capturing, aggregating, and analyzing information” related to beneficiary and customer experiences with Medicare and the federal Obamacare marketplaces. Although the database primarily consists of quality control metrics related to individuals’ interactions with customer service, potential contractors are to “[d]emonstrate … experience with scalability and security in protecting data and information with customer, person-sensitive information including Personal Health Information and Personally Identifiable information (personal health records, etc.).” Vendors are also instructed that one of the requirements of a possible future contract would be “[e]nsuring that all products developed and delivered adhere to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliance standards.”

For a number of years, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the division of HHS responsible for Medicare and now Obamacare also, has maintained a “national data warehouse” (NDW) related to the 1-800-MEDICARE helpline. The passage of the Affordable Care Act and subsequent establishment of the Marketplaces has expanded the scope of the NDW. (Read more from this story HERE)

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The Duopoly Just Put Taxpayers on the Hook for Trillions in Oil Derivatives

bankers-what-now-249By Ellen Brown. The sudden dramatic collapse in the price of oil appears to be an act of geopolitical warfare against Russia. The result could be trillions of dollars in oil derivatives losses; and the FDIC could be liable, following repeal of key portions of the Dodd-Frank Act last weekend. . .

[T]he shocking $50 drop in the price of oil was not due merely to the forces of supply and demand, which are predictable and can be hedged against. According to an article by Larry Elliott in the UK Guardian titled “Stakes Are High as US Plays the Oil Card Against Iran and Russia,” the unanticipated drop was an act of geopolitical warfare administered by the Saudis. . .

If the plan was to break the ruble, it worked. The ruble has dropped by more than 60 percent against the dollar since January. But it came at a cost: not only are U.S. oil producers hurt, but the derivatives banks will get killed if oil prices don’t go back up soon.

At least they would have been killed before the bailout ban was lifted. Now, it seems, that burden could fall on depositors and taxpayers [since the FDIC will now cover derivative losses due to the repeal of parts of Dodd-Frank last weekend]. Did the Obama administration make a deal with the big derivatives banks to save them from Kerry’s clandestine economic warfare at taxpayer expense?

Whatever happened behind closed doors, we the people could again be stuck with the tab. We will continue to be at the mercy of the biggest banks until depository banking is separated from speculative investment banking. Reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act is supported not only by Elizabeth Warren and others on the left but by prominent voices such as David Stockman’s on the right. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Vladimir PutinRussian Economy Shrinking

By Nataliya Vasilyeva. MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian currency extended its losses on Monday after a report showed the economy has started shrinking in annual terms for the first time since 2009 as the country is buffeted by falling oil prices and Western sanctions.

Meanwhile, the government, which has been scrambling to support the ruble and the economy, announced fresh steps to keep the banks afloat.

The ruble has been one of the world’s worst performing currencies this year and was down another 5 percent on Monday, trading at 56 rubles per dollar in early afternoon in Moscow, wiping off some of the gains it made last week.

The fall came as the Economic Development Ministry issued a report showing the economy shrank by 0.5 percent in November compared with a year earlier. The ministry attributed the year-on-year decline in the economy, Russia’s first in five years, to a sharp drop in manufacturing and investment. (Read more from this story HERE)

Audit: Taxpayer Dollars Paid for Eco Group’s $25G Christmas Party, and More

120314_anr_mckelway_640$25,000 for a Christmas party.

$11,000 for premium coffee services.

Millions more for questionable construction costs.

All this was billed to taxpayers by an obscure federally funded science group, according to a scathing new inspector general report.

The audit, conducted by the National Science Foundation inspector general and the Defense Contract Audit Agency, detailed spending by the Colorado-based National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). The nonprofit, designed to operate a network of ecological observatories across the continent, is solely funded by the National Science Foundation.

The report found that spending at the group has gotten out of control.

“Given the present lack of controls, there is virtually no accountability over the contingency funds … NSF does not have sufficient safeguards over the significant and unsupported contingency costs included in NEON’s award budget,” the report said.

Read more from this story HERE.

HUD Official Pleads Guilty To Stealing $843,000 In Taxpayer Funds

Photo Credit: Daily CallerFormer Housing and Urban Development loan specialist Brian Thompson pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing $843,000 of taxpayer money in a wire fraud scheme.

Thompson was responsible for selling properties acquired by the government after borrowers defaulted on their HUD-guaranteed mortgages. Specialists like Thompson were tasked with ensuring the sale of these properties at the best possible price to reimburse the government for taxpayer funds made to mortgage lenders for insured loans. Instead, he funneled portions of the proceeds into bank accounts he controlled, netting himself $843,000 in the process.

Thompson scheme went undetected for nearly a year. To conceal his fraud, he fabricated settlement documents with false sales prices and even buyer names.

“Brian Thompson exploited his government job to rob the American taxpayer of more than $800,000,” said U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen. “This crooked HUD employee diverted the proceeds of real estate sales from the U.S. Treasury to his own pockets through lies and trickery. He now faces serious prison time as a result of criminal breach of the public trust.”

Read more from this story HERE.

More than 1,000 ObamaCare Plans Include Taxpayer-Funded Abortion Coverage

Photo Credit: ReutersThe Government Accountability Office (GAO), the non-partisan government watchdog, has issued a new report that identifies 1,036 Obamacare plans that cover abortion on demand at the expense of taxpayers through subsidies, a fact that confirms the provision in the health reform law requiring individuals to pay separately for abortion coverage is being widely ignored.

As FoxNews.com reports, Republican lawmakers say the “bombshell” finding demonstrates the Obama administration misled the American people when it insisted that under Obamacare, abortions would not be paid for with federal funds.

According to a press release by the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List (SBA-List), the GAO discovered that nearly all of the insurance issuers sampled are not itemizing the required separate abortion surcharge on their bills, again confirming that the Obama administration is ignoring the law’s abortion accounting gimmick.

The GAO report also reveals that disclosure of abortion coverage in plans is inconsistent, a claim that has been made by both pro-life and pro-abortion individuals and suggests that coverage transparency is lacking.

“The report directly contradicts President Obama’s 2009 promise that ‘under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions’ and his claim of being ‘the most transparent administration in history,’” states SBA-List.

Read more from this story HERE.

What Taxpayers Pay When Eric Holder Uses Government Jets For Personal Trips

Photo Credit: Tim Boyles / Getty

Photo Credit: Tim Boyles / Getty

On a pleasant Saturday this summer, Eric Holder, his daughters, their boyfriends and two security officers boarded a government-owned Gulfstream and jetted off to New York for the Belmont Stakes Thoroughbred horse race.

Even for personal trips like this, the attorney general doesn’t fly commercial. For security reasons, Holder — like other top government officials — flies a government plane, though is required to reimburse taxpayers for airfare.

According to records obtained by The Daily Caller through a Freedom of Information Act request, Holder is getting pretty good deal here — especially when he flies a government-owned Gulfstream V jet.

That one day trip to Elmont, N.Y. on June 7, according to records provided to TheDC by the Department of Justice, ended up costing the government $14,440.

But Holder only had to reimburse the government $955 for flying him and four passengers to the final leg of the Triple Crown horse races that day.

Read more from this story HERE.

IRS Quietly Abolishes Mandatory Expiration Dates For Illegal Immigrants’ Taxpayer Status

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Patrick Howley.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) quietly changed regulations to allow more undocumented immigrants to keep their taxpayer status through a program that is rife with fraud and abuse, and to delay deactivation of immigrant taxpayer status until 2016.

The IRS now prevents peoples’ Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) from automatically expiring after five years as previously mandated. Now immigrants can keep their ITIN so long as they pay taxes at least once in a five-year period.

The ITIN program is primarily used by undocumented workers to follow the law and file income taxes in the United States. Reports came out during the IRS scandal linking ITIN fraud to billions in lost taxpayer dollars. The IRS was forced to reform the ITIN program at the start of 2013 – but this new regulation undoes that reform.

“The IRS will not deactivate an ITIN that has been used on at least one tax return in the past five years,” the IRS said in an explainer of the new policy. “To give all interested parties time to adjust and allow the IRS to reprogram its systems, the IRS will not begin deactivating ITINs until 2016…The new, more uniform policy applies to any ITIN, regardless of when it was issued.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Border Agent: ‘Morale Is at an All-Time Low Right Now’

By Andrew Johnson.

Teenage criminals and gang members from Central America have been using “a loophole” to stay in the country, border agent Chris Cabrera revealed. Under current policy, unaccompanied minors are allowed to stay in the country if they have family in the United States and say they have none in their home country, regardless of their background.

“Even if he is a confirmed gang member, a confirmed criminal, even by self-admission, we for some reason don’t send them back to their home country — we release them into our country,” Cabrera said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Fox News Latino

Photo Credit: Fox News Latino

Nearly 100 Bodies Of Deceased Immigrants Found In Arizona Desert Since October

By EFE / Fox News.

The U.S. Border Patrol has found the bodies of 97 undocumented immigrants in the Arizona desert over the past 10 months, the latest being that of a 19-year-old youth.

“We got a call from a man asking for help. He told us he was crossing the mountains with his son who was hit by lightning. When the agents arrived he was already dead,” Andres Adame, spokesman for the Border Patrol in Tucson told Efe.

Despite the decline in the number of undocumented immigrants crossing the border and the number of arrests in Arizona, people are still dying in the desert, since, Adame said, besides supporting the high summer temperatures they also have to weather the storms, which can strike at any time and very quickly move on.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Fournier: Executive Action on Immigration Would Be ‘a Nuclear Bomb’

By Andrew Johnson.

If President Obama grants legal status to millions of immigrants in the country illegally through executive action, he will drastically divide the nation and totally discount his presidential pledge, National Journal’s Ron Fournier said. Fournier, who believes the immigrants should get legal status, argued executive orders would be the worst way to do it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Feds Fly Immigrant Minors to Hawaii on Taxpayer Dime

Photo Credit: Watchdog.org

Photo Credit: Watchdog.org

By Malia Zimmerman.

Although 2,500 miles from the continental United States, Hawaii has joined the list of states temporarily housing unaccompanied minors from Central America who have illegally crossed into America through the Southwest border.

Who’s paying the freight? You, the taxpayer.

Some 60,000 Central American youths fleeing their home countries have come to the United States in the past few months. That number could reach 90,000 by the end of the year. Politicians, border agents and social service workers call the migration a “humanitarian crisis.”

Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told Watchdog.org that “between January 1 and July 7, a total of eight minors were discharged from the unaccompanied alien children program to sponsors in Hawaii.”

Wolfe couldn’t offer any details on the ages and countries of origin of the children, where the children are now living, or who is sponsoring them in Hawaii. However, he added the sponsors are “mostly family members of the child. In fact, more than half are parents of the minor.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Immigrants to be Housed in ‘Suites’ Near San Antonio

By KRGV.com.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday will open a remodeled detention center three hours north of the Rio Grande Valley.

The Karnes City center will house women and children who entered the country illegally through the Valley.

The 532-bed facility underwent a massive renovation to house women and children. The center housed only adult immigrants in the past.

Immigrants will be at the facility for an average of 23 days.

The feds said the rooms will be referred to as “suites.” The suites are furnished with bunk beds, play tables for children, flat-screen television sets and landline telephones.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

1000 Children Fleeing Violent Honduras Heading to Violent Chicago

By Susan Jones.

A thousand children said to be fleeing the violence in Central America will be welcomed to Chicago, where local children are routinely in the cross-fire of gang-related grudges.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel, at the request of the Obama administration in which he formerly served, says he is working with local organizations to make room for up to one thousand additional unaccompanied children “traveling” from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border in the coming year.

“The influx of unaccompanied child migrants is a growing humanitarian crisis that we can no longer ignore,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “While we have our own challenges at home, we cannot turn our backs on children who are fleeing dangerous conditions. We will do our part to ensure that these children are given access to services and treated fairly and humanely.”

The city is also asking Chicago law firms to provide free legal assistance to the foreign children.

Emanuel on Wednesday said that his own grandfather left eastern Europe at age 13, all alone, to get away from the violence directed at Jews.

Read more from this story HERE.