Taxes and the IRS

Note:  All the material related to high gas prices has moved here.  Some of the problem has to do with events like Hurricane Katrina, but a lot of it results from high taxes, as well as ordinary supply and demand.


Part 1 - Taxes:

 Excellent:   Let's do some detective work.  Today's White House proposes and Congress taxes and spends for anything they can muster a majority vote on.  My investigative query is:  Were the Founders and previous congressmen and presidents, who could not find constitutional authority for today's bread and circuses, just plain stupid and ignorant?

Getting back our liberties:  We all have a moral obligation to pay our share for constitutionally mandated functions of the federal government, but we have no such obligation to have Congress take the earnings of one American and give them to another American.  Forcing one American to serve the purposes of another is one way slavery can be defined.

'If I had a nickel for every bag,' sez Mayor Bloomberg.  Mayor Bloomberg wants to nickel and dime you at the grocery store -- taxing you an extra 5 cents for every plastic bag you take home.  The controversial charge could raise at least $16 million for the cash-strapped city while keeping tons of plastic out of landfills, city officials said Thursday [11/6/2008] -- but some outraged shoppers aren't buying it.

15 Percent NYC Income Tax Hike On the Way?  Mayor Michael Bloomberg is going to cut the city work force by 3,000, but that's just the beginning of the pain New Yorkers will feel as part of the fiscal crisis.  A slew of new taxes are also on the agenda.  There will be 1,000 fewer cops, but the city will hire 200 more traffic agents to give out $60 million a year in new block-the-box tickets.

One Life to Give the IRS.  This week, Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden unleashed the most absurd remark of his illustrious career, claiming that taxes are "patriotic."  Biden claims that wealthier Americans should pay more in taxes because "it's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."  Oh, the injustice of American society!  When, exactly, did taxation transform into a form of charity?

Taxes could get sky-high with aerial technology.  A new high-tech aerial photography system that can spot an illegal porch from 5,000 feet is being marketed to tax assessors as a way to grow revenue.  Pictometry International Corp. says it offers tax assessors 12 different views of every square foot of building or land in a jurisdiction that buys their system.  They call it "sophisticated visual intelligence."  State Sen. Jeff Van Drew has another name for it.  "It's Big Brother," said Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic.

America's Tax Bill Tops $26,738 Per Household.  Americans paid about $3 trillion in taxes in 2004, totaling $26,738 per household, according to a new study released March 26 by the Tax Foundation.  "Which Taxes Weigh Most Heavily on Americans with Different Incomes?" shows $17,338 of that amount went to the federal government, with $9,400 going to state and local governments.

Investors Flee From 'Change' Obama Hypes.  Are Barack Obama's proposed tax increases adversely affecting our financial markets?  We say yes, unambiguously.  The senator has done a masterful job distracting attention from his tax increases with his $500-per-worker tax credit supposedly for 95% of Americans. ... With the bottom 40% of income earners not paying any federal income taxes, such tax credits would not reduce any tax liability for these workers.  Instead, since they're refundable, they would involve new checks from the federal government.  These are not tax cuts as Obama is promising.  They are new government spending programs buried in the tax code and estimated to cost $1.3 trillion over 10 years.

Taxing Times.  The two months between the time of a presidential election and the time when the new president takes office is an eternity in terms of how much money can be transferred out of the country electronically before any new high-tax laws can be enacted. ... Much wealth from Third World countries flows out to richer countries like Switzerland or the United States, where it is safer from confiscation.  Jack up the capital gains tax rate in the United States and more Americans can be expected to send their capital elsewhere.

Obama tax cut 'refunds' those who don't pay.  To pay for his middle-class tax cuts, Mr. Obama would raise the top marginal tax rate on Americans earning more than $250,000 to 35 percent from 30.6 percent.  According to the IRS, the top 5 percent of all income earners in 2004 paid 57.13 percent of all income taxes.

Obama's Tax Cut is Actually a Spending Increase, Says Non-Partisan Group.  The heart of Obama's tax cut proposal is in his use of refundable tax credits, which the [Tax Policy] Center describes as "credits available to eligible households even if they have no income tax liability" — in short, refunds available even to those who don't pay taxes. ... These refunds have the ability of reducing a taxpayer's liability below zero, meaning they can get a refund without actually paying taxes.

Obama's 95% Illusion.  Once upon a time we called this "welfare," or in George McGovern's 1972 campaign a "Demogrant."  Mr. Obama's genius is to call it a tax cut.  The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year.

Searching for Obama's 95 Percent.  If Barack Obama can effectively claim that his plan cuts taxes on 95 percent of Americans, then the term "tax cut" has no meaning.

The Case Against Barack Obama, Part 1.  Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama promises to "cut taxes for 95 percent of American workers."  That's not possible.  Why?  More than 30 percent pay nothing in federal income taxes.

In Defense of "The Rich":  The top 5 percent (those making more than $153,542 — the group whose taxes Obama seeks to raise) pay 60 percent of all federal income taxes.  The rich (aka the top 1 percent of income earners, those making more than $388,806 a year), according to the IRS, pay 40 percent of all federal income taxes.  The top 1 percent's taxes comprise 17 percent of the federal government's revenue from all sources, including corporate taxes, excise taxes, social insurance and retirement receipts.

Memo to McCain:  Take the Gloves Off.  Obama says, without rebuttal, that his plan lowers taxes on "95 percent of working families."  This is flatly impossible because 32 percent of income tax returns filed (some 43 million Americans) pay absolutely nothing in federal income taxes.  Obama makes his claim by offering a $500 "Making Work Pay" tax credit to everybody ($1,000 per family), by expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, and creating other credits.  If your tax credit is more than your tax liability, you receive a check from the Treasury and you pay no taxes.  That is not a "tax cut."

Monsieur Obama's Tax Rates:  Celebrity chef Alain Ducasse changed his citizenship this month from high-tax France to no-income-tax Monaco.  He says it wasn't a financial decision but an "affair of the heart."  Of course.  Nonetheless, plenty of other Frenchmen have moved abroad to escape their country's confiscatory taxes.  Americans should be so lucky: Ours is the only industrialized country that taxes its citizens even if they live overseas.

Good Money After Bad.  While gas prices are at record highs and American families are feeling the economic pinch, Congress may just decide to boost gas prices even higher.  Their reason will be to save jobs.  As the Associated Press reported on July 20, "Now, lawmakers quietly are talking about raising fuel taxes by a dime from the current 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.3 cents on diesel fuel."

Benchmarks of bondage:  The average American worker toils from Jan. 1 to the end of April, and has no legal claim to the fruits of his labor for that period.  Federal, state and local governments, through tax codes, take what he produces.  A small portion of the fruits of his labor provides for the constitutional functions of government.  Most of what is taken, up to two-thirds, is given to some other American in the forms of farm and business subsidies, Social Security, Medicare, welfare and hundreds of other government handout programs.  As in slavery, one person is being forcibly used to serve the purposes of another person.

Taxachusetts, RIP.  Massachusetts was home of the Boston Tea Party, but in recent years the commonwealth's voters have tended to docilely accept whatever level of taxation the robber barons on Beacon Hill deem appropriate.  When the tax issue is put directly on the ballot, however, Bostonians momentarily regain their tax-resisting, tea-dumping spirit.

Texas Treats Phone Use Like a 'Sin'.  Texas consumers who buy electronics or yard equipment pay a combined state and local sales tax rate of 8.25 percent.  For cars, it's 6.25 percent.  Only mixed beverages (14 percent) and cigarettes (35.6 percent) are in the range of telecom taxes.  Taxes and fees for local telephone service total almost 29 percent, putting telephone use in Texas in the "sin tax" category.

Bottled Water Tax Brings Only a Trickle of Revenue.  The city of Chicago's bottled water tax, which went into effect in January, may bring in less than half of what revenue forecasters first said it would raise.  Consumers appear to be buying their water anywhere but in the city.

Cook County President Gets Earful from Angry Citizens.  Hundreds of residents of Cook County, Illinois gave County Board President Todd Stroger (D) an earful over a 1 percentage point sales tax increase that is forcing county shoppers to pay the highest sales tax burdens in the nation.  Groans and derisive laughter greeted comments by Stroger and his staff as they defended the tax increase at a meeting at a local college in Palatine in June.  Applause greeted many people who spoke against the county's tax-grabbing, high-spending ways.

New York's Snatch-and-Grab:  New York tax officials are looking to fill budget shortfalls by looking beyond state borders.  As part of its budget, New York passed a first-of-its kind law that saddles sales tax collection burdens on catalog and online retailers in every state of the country. … Needless to say, this new sales tax law has glaring constitutional problems.

New tax shocks business owners.  Wayne Bronner, president of Michigan's iconic Bronner's Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, doesn't feel much Christmas spirit these days for the new Michigan Business Tax.  Compared with what his company paid under Michigan's hated Single Business Tax, Bronner's will pay about 500% more now under the new Michigan Business Tax, a supposed improvement over the SBT that took effect Jan. 1.  The increase includes a surcharge approved late last year so the state wouldn't go broke.

Virtual Steamroller.  New York recently finished 50th in Chief Executive magazine's survey of the best states to do business.  Respondents cited high taxes, regulation and Governor Eliot Spitzer's "hostile image toward business."  The Governor, for his part, seems to have decided that if he can't convince companies to move to the Empire State, he'll simply have to govern them from a distance.  Eager to fund his proposed 4.8% budget increase this year (last year's was 6%), Mr. Spitzer is attempting to force out-of-state retailers such as Amazon.com to collect New York state sales taxes.

Windfall-Profit Nonsense:  Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to raise the price of oil, as well as most everything else, and lower the value of the pension and mutual funds that union members and retirees depend on.  Of course, they don't describe their plan that way.  Instead, they call for a windfall-profits tax on the oil companies.  But it's the same thing.  Taxing a "windfall" sounds appealing, but stock prices are based on expected profits.

Paying at the Pump:  Gasoline Taxes in America.  Early gasoline taxes in the states were explicitly created in an attempt to charge road users for the privilege of using roads.  However, from the very inception of gasoline taxation, public officials have faced temptation to divert gasoline tax revenue to projects that are only tangentially related to transportation and that are often purely politically motivated.

What the "Alternative Minimum Tax" Really Means for American Families:  By its name, many taxpayers might assume the AMT is a good thing.  A simpler "alternative" to the complicated and overly burdensome tax code would be welcome news. … To the contrary, the AMT denies taxpayers many important deductions, so that middle class families subject to AMT actually pay higher taxes.  To make matters worse, Congress failed to index the AMT for inflation.  So the AMT has not been adjusted to keep pace with the rise in income and cost of living.

Bush signs $555 billion spending bill.  Mr. Bush also signed into law a bill that places a one-year freeze on the alternative minimum tax.  Without such legislation, more than 20 million taxpayers would have faced this tax for the first time this year and it would have cost each an additional estimated $2,000 at tax time.  Last year, 4 million paid the AMT; this year, it was expected to hit 25 million.

Tide turning against toll hike plan.  Gov. Jon Corzine's plan to cut state debt and fund transportation projects by sharply hiking tolls ran into deep political trouble yesterday, with every Republican in the Legislature and a key Democratic senator vowing to oppose it.

NJ:  High Price For Rotten Government.  When New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine announced his slimmed-down budget recently, he said that the state could no longer afford the government that it now has.  What he didn't say is that this government isn't just expensive, it's also mismanaged and ineffective.  That is, New Jerseyans pay some of the country's highest taxes to get one of the country's worst governments.

Why business is fleeing New Jersey:  It's like watching a car wreck in slow motion.  What the Democrats are doing to the state's economy, I mean.  Pieces are flying off in all directions.  In terms of taxes and regulation, New Jersey was once a relative haven, a cheap place to do business.  But for most of this century, we've been slowly losing high-income residents and high-income jobs. … The primary source of job growth in recent years has been in government, not private industry.  And that represents a death spiral.  Public employment creates higher taxes, which in turn discourage private employers from locating or expanding in New Jersey.

N.J. struggling under tax burden.  Between 2002 and 2007, property-tax collections went from $16 billion to $22.1 billion -- a 38 percent jump caused largely by the ballooning costs of running schools and towns.  That increase was more than double the inflation rate in the same period.

New Jersey Lawmakers Consider Tax On Fast Food.  The sputtering economy has caused an increase in prices of many staples including gasoline, rice, ice cream, even beer.  Now some lawmakers in New Jersey are considering taking food taxes a step further and install a proverbial "sin" tax on fast food.  Yes, the idea of marking up your favorite fast food burger or pack of fries is actually being tossed around, and it's not settling well with many residents.

New Jersey Has the Nation's Worst Business Tax Climate.  The Tax Foundation's 2009 State Business Tax Climate Index, the sixth annual report ranking the 50 states on the business-friendliness of their tax codes, finds New Jersey has the worst business tax climate in the nation ... for the second year in a row.  The organization released the index in October in Trenton, New Jersey to highlight the Garden State's earning the worst overall score.

Cash-strapped states resort to odd taxes.  Need a few million dollars to fill a budget deficit?  Lease a toll highway, like Indiana and Virginia did, or cash in on future lottery profits as a half-dozen states are considering.  You could slap a tax on pornography as six states already have, or tax strip joints like they do in Texas, where they call it a "pole tax."  Some states take a slice out of pumpkin sales at Halloween.  And most states tax Shaquille O'Neal and Barry Bonds when they visit, using a "jock tax" on professional athletic events.

Taxman may come for Wake's cats and dogs.  Wake County [NC] wants to put a tax on dogs and cats of up to $30 a year — an idea that is making some veterinarians, pet owners and animal advocates bristle.  Under a proposal that county commissioners still must approve, the annual tax would start in July and be levied on every dog and cat.  The licensing tax would be $15 for a dog or cat that had been spayed or neutered; $30 for non-fixed canines and felines.

Raising Taxes is Not the Answer.  American businessmen, American families, and the individual American taxpayer deserve another way to pay for Washington's annual budget.  Raising taxes is not the answer.  It is a temporary solution to the permanent problem of government overexpansion.  We simply must stop finding ways to pay for an ever bigger government.

Tax Day is every day in Chicago.  Bears fans pouring into Soldier Field on Sunday may not notice as they wait with anticipation for the kickoff against the Minnesota Vikings, but City Hall will have its hand in their pockets.  The price of their tickets includes a hefty 8 percent "amusement tax."  But then, it's not easy to keep track of all the times the city dings you because it has about two dozen different — and sometimes obscure and stealthy — ways to do it.

Live and Let Live.  When the Salvation Army asks you for a donation, you are free to say no, and you suffer no consequences.  When the U.S. government demands a tax return and a check on April 15, you can't say no and go about your business.  You comply or face fines or imprisonment.  Yes, you get to vote for candidates periodically.  But having an infinitesimal say in who will coerce you doesn't change that fact that they are using force.

5-cent gas tax hike proposed for bridges' repairs.  House Democrats feuded with Republicans and the Bush administration Wednesday [9/5/2007] over raising gasoline taxes to pay for safer bridges.  A month after an interstate bridge collapsed in Minneapolis and killed 13 people, the government is struggling to develop a long-term way to pay for repairs and new construction.

The Editor says...
First of all, the existing gasoline tax is supposed to have already paid for highways and bridges over the last fifty years.  Secondly, there would be plenty of money for highway and bridge maintenance if the government would stop spending money on the exploration of other planets, football stadiums, and hundreds of other pork barrel projects.

Eliminate the Gasoline Tax?  The Greens have, as long as my memory serves, hated gasoline as much as DDT.  We instinctively know that taxing gasoline "will not discourage highway congestion and reduce accidents on the roadway."

Why Liberals Spread Poverty:  It's called a "surcharge."  You and I would call it a tax increase.  One more way and reason for the political class to take even more of the money that you and I slave for by slugging it 9 to 5 everyday.  In their funny little semantic sideshow this "surcharge" would be their answer to resolving the problem of the "alternative minimum tax."

The Real Reason For Federal Corruption:  The increased role of the federal government opens the door to federal corruption.  As long as the federal government spends millions of taxpayer dollars on purely state and local projects, lobbyists would be fools to stay away.  As long as the federal government spends cash on bridges to nowhere and structures named after senators, political interest groups will lurk in the shadows, offering pay-for-play.

Kill this monster.  What politician would rail against the country's irrational, insufferable, infernal Internal Revenue Code today, except perhaps for ceremonial purposes?  Some in Congress have made distinguished careers leading the innocent and unwary through its byzantine ways and byways, occasionally constructing secret passages to favor the special interests they represent.  Whole industries like accountancy and tax law have been built on it.

The People who Brought you Tax Day.  Taxes are too complex for the good of the economy, too complex for families, and too complex for small businesses.  For big business and for Washington lobbyists, complexity means profit.

The 'Tax Gap' Myth:  The "tax gap" is the difference between what the Internal Revenue Service thinks taxpayers should be paying and what it collects.  The IRS currently estimates this at about $290 billion a year.

Let the backlash begin.
Election Earthquake Rattles Pennsylvania Legislature.  "Earthquake" is one of the words politicians are using to describe the ouster of numerous incumbent lawmakers in the May primary elections by voters who were angered and outraged over tax hikes, spending increases, and boosts in legislative pay.  The epicenter of this electoral earthquake was Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where at least 47 lawmakers will leave office. … Before the May primary election, 30 other incumbents had announced they would not seek reelection, most because they believed they would lose, according to Pennsylvania political observers.

The pan-partisan "debt, debt, and more debt" plan:  Politicians of both parties like to spend.  Both like to increase taxes.  Both want to "do more things."  It's gone out of style to just keep the old services going; the general consensus seems to be:  progress.  By which they mean:  debt. ... The four-letter word of politics.

IRS Wants E-Commerce Data.  The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) is sounding an early warning on a proposal in the president's 2008 budget that would require Internet businesses such as Ebay and Amazon.com to collect personal data on their customers and share it with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  The move is part of an effort by the U.S. Treasury Department to track down unreported small business income generated by the sale of personal property on such sites.

Internet Sales Tax Looms.  Online shoppers in more than 20 states may soon pay sales taxes on their purchases if Congress passes pending legislation.  Under the proposed Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Act, out-of-state merchants and online vendors must collect sales tax on goods shipped to some states.

The Fair Tax:  America's Last Best Hope.  I think there is one last chance for America to regain its past glory and, perhaps, to turn back the tide of socialism that threatens our future prosperity.  This last chance comes in the form of a single piece of legislation which, if passed, will cure almost all of what is ailing America.  I know that seems like an extreme position but I think it can be argued persuasively.

Why I'm a Conservative:  A Conservative is not opposed to all taxation, but rather sees taxes as a necessary evil, and therefore wants to encourage only the level of taxation that will support the necessities of limited civil government.  Tax policy shouldn't be used as a means to punish economic social classes that have benefited from the America Dream, nor as a wedge to promote envy, discontentment and coveting.

Democrats and high taxes go hand in hand.
Minnesota Senate OKs $1 billion tax increase.  The bill would create a top Minnesota tax rate of 9.7 percent, giving the state the highest top income tax rate in the nation.

Holiday Season 'Tax Holidays' are No Break for Taxpayers.  This year, South Carolina lawmakers have enacted a gimmicky, two-day "sales tax holiday" to follow the real holiday, but it will only remind us of their unwillingness to let taxpayers keep more of their money year round.

New Jersey Has Highest Property Taxes in U.S.  New Jersey has the highest property taxes in America — a burden that is alarming young couples and retirees alike and deepening public cynicism in a state with a long and rich history of graft and self-dealing.  The average property owner in the Garden State pays about $6,000 a year in property taxes, twice the national average.

Corporate Income Tax Rates in U.S. Are Among the Highest in the World.  Amid growing concerns about U.S. economic competitiveness, policymakers are awakening to the fact that America has one of the world's most inefficient corporate income taxes.  Rep. Charles Rangel (D-New York), chairman of the U.S. House tax committee, has proposed reducing the federal corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 30.5 percent.  Henry Paulson, secretary of the Treasury, is also promoting a corporate tax rate cut.

Stealth tax hike slips through Senate.  On May 23, as the Senate raced toward passage of the comprehensive immigration bill before the Memorial Day break began, Sen. Charles Grassley moved the adoption of a new Title III to the measure.  It passed easily without anybody mentioning that the amendment raises revenue, which was a violation of the U.S. Constitution's requirement that all such measures originate in the House of Representatives.

Blanco administration looking at possible tolls on Interstates.  An idea floated by Gov. Kathleen Blanco's transportation chief to turn Interstates 10 and 12 across south Louisiana into toll roads ran into opposition Thursday [8/10/2006] from Louisiana's two U.S. senators.  U.S. Sen. David Vitter, who released information on the proposal, said it would unduly tax thousands of people who use the highways and asked Blanco to scrap any proposals to put toll booths on Louisiana's interstates.

It attacks a village.  A Congress that maintains the death tax isn't just attacking families like the Hannays, it is also attacking the villages where they live.

Taxes, Spending, and Debt are the Real Issues.  The question to ask yourself is this:  What would I do with the money withheld from my paycheck each month?  The answer is simple:  you would spend, save, or invest the money, all of which do more for the economy and society than sending it to Washington.  Thanks to the deception of income tax withholding, however, some people actually look forward to tax time and a much-anticipated refund.  Imagine how quickly Americans would demand lower taxes and spending if they had to write the federal government a check each month!

At Tax Day Rally, Conservatives Want Taxpayers to 'Get Mad and Stay Mad'.  Edward Hudgins, executive director of the Objectivist Center thinks Americans are too dependent on politicians for handouts.  The tax system is immoral because it makes free Americans beggars, "dependent on crumbs thrown to us by politicians," he says.

Florida Wants to Double Local Car Rental Tax.  The Florida legislature voted in May to allow local governments to increase the current car rental tax surcharge from $2 to $4 per rental.  Now only Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and November referenda in localities that want to increase the tax stand in the way of car rental tax hikes. … Bush has indicated misgivings about allowing higher car rental surcharges, telling news-press.com the biggest problem with the measure is that people who would pay the higher tax "can't vote on it."

[Well, Governor Bush, that's because we live in a democratic republic, not a direct democracy.  When the voters elect certain types of people, they have voted to raise taxes.]

Flat-Out Smart.  Imagine a law that affected everyone in the country but was so confusing that only a select few could understand it.  And those select few didn't even include the people who enforced the law.  That may sound like a recipe for disaster.  Actually, it's a description of our current tax policy.  Almost 900 tax forms are in use today.  It takes more than 60,000 pages of laws, regulations and IRS rulings to explain how we are supposed to fill out those forms.

A dangerous obsession.  Can you imagine anything more dangerous than allowing politicians to decide how much money each of us can earn?  Of course, such political control of incomes is usually advocated only to deal with "the rich."  But, when income taxes were imposed in the early 20th century, they applied only to "the rich" and they took a very small percentage of their income.  Once the floodgates are opened to this kind of political power, however, we have seen with the income taxes that they not only spread far beyond "the rich," they took a serious share of even middle class incomes.

The Number of Americans Outside the Income Tax System Continues to Grow.  Economists estimate that for tax year 2004, a record 42.5 million Americans who filed a tax return (one-third of the 131 million returns filed last year) had no tax liability after they took advantage of their credits and deductions.  Millions more paid next to nothing. … In addition to these non-payers, roughly 15 million individuals and families earned some income last year but not enough to be required to file a tax return.

The Top 1% Pay 35%.  The wealthiest 1 percent of tax filers paid a remarkable 35 percent of all individual income-tax payments [in 2004].  Some will claim that this merely shows that the Bush tax cuts made the rich richer.  In fact, the Statistics of Income data reveal that there were more Americans filing taxes in every income category from $50,000 and up in 2004.

The top one-hundredth of one percent.  Collecting taxes is not as easy as it sounds.  And taxes don't redistribute income — they just reduce income.  Means-tested federal transfer payments account for little more than 10 percent of federal spending, and more taxes won't change that because the poor don't lobby or contribute to campaigns and rarely vote.

Millions Hit by Tax Intended for the Wealthy.  Millions of middle-income Americans are about to be hit by the alternative minimum tax (AMT), enacted nearly 30 years ago to ensure the nation's wealthiest citizens pay income taxes.  Congress failed to act on the AMT in 2005, leaving more than 15 million Americans to feel its bite this year.

[Are there really 15 million wealthy people in the U.S.?]

Whatever the Question, the Answer is Not Raising Taxes.  Each year when budget time rolls around in the states, there are questions of how to pay for government functions.  Often, there are more hands outstretched to lawmakers than tax dollars to dole out.  Rather than raiding taxpayers' wallets each year, fiscally responsible legislators and state officials have turned to several key strategies to prioritize and control state spending.

Are We Being Taxed to Death?  Governments in the U.S. take approximately 40 percent of the country's total income in taxes.  In other words, nearly half of all the income generated each year is sent to governments to spend.  The good news is that a growing number of people pay no federal taxes at all. … The bad news is that people who do pay taxes much pay more to make up for those who pay nothing.

Liberty in Our Lifetime.  Are you frustrated at the loss of freedom and responsibility in America, while the growth of government and taxes continues unabated?  Do you want to live in strong communities where your rights are respected, and people exercise responsibility for themselves and in their dealings with each other?  If you answered "yes" to those questions, then the Free State Project has a solution for you.

58 Million Wage Earners Pay No Federal Income Tax.  According to the Washington, DC-based Tax Foundation, "a record 44 million tax returns filed in 2005 will be correctly demanding the return of every dollar (or more) that is being withheld from their paychecks during 2004."

Interesting chart:
Who Pays Income Taxes?  See who pays what.  Half of the US taxpayers pay 96.5% of all taxes.  The other half get a free ride.

History of Federal Individual Income Bottom and Top Bracket Rates.

Update:
The Top 50% pay 96.54% of All Income Taxes.  This is the latest data for calendar year 2003 just released in October 2005 by the Internal Revenue Service.  The share of total income taxes paid by the top 1% of wage earners rose to 34.27% from 33.71% in 2002.  Their income share (not just wages) rose from 16.12% to 16.77%.  However, their average tax rate actually dropped from 27.25% down to 24.31%.

Who pays the taxes?  A few weeks ago, the Internal Revenue Service released data on tax year 2003.  They show that the top 1 percent of taxpayers, ranked by adjusted gross income, paid 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes that year.  The top 5 percent paid 54.4 percent, the top 10 percent paid 65.8 percent, and the top quarter of taxpayers paid 83.9 percent.

Washington's Governor Wants to Spend an Additional $503 Million.  With a $1.45 billion ending fund balance projected for the remainder of the 2005-07 budget biennium, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) is proposing $503 million in new spending in her 2006 supplemental budget request. … "We are right back on board the tax and spend merry-go-round.  This year's spending will inevitably lead to higher taxes down the road," warned outgoing state Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance.

The Editor interjects...
[State and federal governments don't just spend what they need and refund the rest.  If they can create even a momentary perception of a surplus, they'll spend every dollar they can get.]

On the other hand...
Georgia Governor Gives up Tax 'Windfall'.  The governor's tax cut follows a one-month moratorium on the state sales tax on gasoline that was implemented after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hurt supplies.  That moratorium was ratified by the General Assembly in a special session and saved motorists an estimated $77 million.

When taxation is obviously theft:  The New York Times reported on utilities that collect taxes from their clients, but don't pay those taxes to the government.  And get away with it.

The Bad Tax Bill Within the Bad Energy Bill:  The tax provisions are little more than a collection of old ideas that have never worked, new ideas unlikely to work, and a lot of pork for the energy industry.

Fixing America's Tax Code:  With all its mind-numbing complexity and wrong-headed rules, the tax code is emblematic of the entire body of federal laws and regulations on every subject imaginable.  Thus, the stakes riding on successful tax reform are enormous.

The top one percent:  Because most people now accumulate most capital gains and dividends in ways undetectable on tax returns, tax data wrongly suggest that only the very rich (whose investments exceed the caps on 401k and Keogh contributions) still appear to be realizing many gains.  This creates a statistical illusion that only those at the top appeared to benefit much from the 1982-2000 boom in stocks and bonds.

Feeding the kitty for Katrina.  The tax increase proponents seemingly cannot grasp that taxes reduce our economic vitality.  When taxes rise, the economy slows.  When taxes are reduced, job creation and economic growth accelerate.  Those who do not understand the role of incentives are always surprised when tax revenues increase, as they did after the Reagan and recent Bush tax cuts, and fall or stagnate when tax rates increase.

The Facts About Federal Spending.  Including the President's fiscal year 2003 proposal, the Congress will spend almost $800 billion more between 2000-2003 than it did during the period of 1996-1999.  This escalation in spending will raise the total four-year cost of the federal government to an egregious $73,373 per household.

"View tax" triggers revolt in rural New Hampshire.  The one-room cabin David Bischoff built in a cow pasture three years ago has no electricity, no running water, no phone service and no driveway.  What it does have is a wide-open view of the surrounding hills — a view valued at $140,000, according to the latest townwide property revaluation.

The Editor asks...
Are blind people exempt from the view tax?

More information on taxes in general:

50-State Table of Individual Income Tax Rates.

State and Local Tax Burdens by State, 1970-Present.



The 108-year-old Telephone Tax

Time for a Truce in the Spanish-American War.  One-hundred and seven years ago, the United States went to war with Spain.  Because at that time telephones were still a luxury item owned largely by the rich, Congress decided to create a special, 3 percent excise tax on telephone service to finance the war.  Although the war ended pretty quickly, the tax endured and, in fact, is still assessed on every American's phone bill.

Three Percent Fee On Cell Phones Started 107 Years Ago.  Anybody who has ever tried to decipher a cell phone bill knows how tough it can be.  One of the charges is a 3 percent fee on every cell phone bill in America.  The origin of the tax predates the invention of the cellular phone by nearly a century.

Courts Strike Down Phone Tax.  The IRS is having to defend itself against lawsuits from large telecom consumers because of its refusal to stop collecting the "temporary" federal excise tax (FET) on telephone services the federal government imposed to help fund the Spanish American War, which ended on December 10, 1898.  Telephone service then was in its infancy, and only some wealthy people and businesses had telephones.  The tax stayed in place, however, as telephone use spread, and it was expanded over time to cover other telecom services.

Finally!
The Phone Tax is Laid to Rest at Age 108.  Bowing to changes in technology and pressure from taxpayers and phone companies, the Treasury Department said yesterday that it would scrap the 108-year-old federal excise tax on long-distance phone calls.  The move will bring consumers and businesses about $15 billion in refunds on next year's tax returns.

Consumers Will Get Refunds for 1898 Phone Tax.  More than 100 years after the Spanish-American War ended, the 3 percent telephone tax that was imposed to pay for the war is about to end.  The U.S. Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service announced on May 25 they plan to stop collecting the tax on long-distance phone calls beginning August 1.  Consumers will receive about $15 billion in refunds on their 2006 income tax returns, filed in 2007.

After 100 Years, Telecom Tax Is No More.  The U.S. Treasury Department will stop collecting the 3 percent telephone tax, more than 100 years after the end of the Spanish American War, the conflict the tax was levied to fund.

Update:
IRS Failed to Refund $4 Billion in Improper Taxes.  The Internal Revenue Service has failed to refund about $4 billion in improperly collected taxes, according to a Treasury Department audit.  The IRS collected $8 billion while an outdated tax on long-distance telephone calls was being challenged in court, according to a federal report that states "a significant amount" of the tax "may never be refunded."



Telecom Taxes Are Unduly Harsh, Regressive:  Study.  Taxes and fees imposed on cable TV and phone services in 59 U.S. cities cost the average household approximately $264 a year, according to a new report from a team of researchers at The Heartland Institute and Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University.  On average, communication services are taxed at 13.32 percent, twice the average rate of other products, the study found.

Cook County Eyes $4 Phone Tax.  A Cook County, Illinois proposal to impose a $4 tax on all wireline and wireless phone lines has drawn fire from all sides, including the local phone company, consumer advocates, and the local utilities watchdog group.

Congress Considers Beer a Luxury — But Not Mink Coats, Private Jets, or Yachts.  President George H.W. Bush and Congress in 1990 raised a host of excise taxes on "luxury" items including expensive cars, fur coats, jewelry, yachts, and private airplanes.  Included in the list of luxury items was beer, which at the time saw a doubling of the federal excise tax, from $9 to $18 a barrel.  Fifteen years later, the taxes on expensive cars, fur coats, jewelry, yachts, and private airplanes have been rolled back.  The beer tax remains, even though the main purchasers of beer are lower- and middle-income consumers.  Taxes make up an astounding 44 percent of the retail price of beer, according to the Beer Institute.

Tax Group Targets Spanish-American War Tax.  Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) announced on March 10 [2005] that it would make repeal of a 107-year-old federal excise tax on telephone service a major priority in the current session of Congress.  Since then, support for the proposal has been increasing.  The tax — a flat 3 percent on every telephone bill — was enacted in 1898 to fund the Spanish-American War.

Don't Tax My iPod!  Anyone who has ever taken the time to inspect a landline or wireless phone bill will know that, on top of the price of service, the government heaps taxes:  the telecom excise tax, universal service fee, and various others.  The combined state and local tax rate for wireline telecom services averages 14 percent and can be as high as 30 percent, putting communications in the sin-tax bracket along with alcohol and cigarettes.  For a country that claims to value free speech, it's ironic that the tax system is so regressive, favoring communication for the rich.

Evidence, evidence and more evidence.  An opinion piece by reporter Anna Bernasek in last Sunday's New York Times actually argues that there's no real evidence that lower tax rates spur economic growth.  Bernasek finds a couple of economists to back up her idea before concluding that tax "reform based on a notion that taxes are bad for the economy is just that:  a notion not backed by strong evidence."  Let me beg to differ in a very strong way.



The Smoking Section:

Texas House Approves $1 Increase in Cigarette Tax.  A pack-a-day will cost Texas smokers an extra $365 a year under a cigarette tax increase approved in the House on Thursday [4/27/2006].

Update:
Texas smokers face tax increase.  Smokers in Texas are bracing themselves for a $1 tax increase per pack of cigarettes next month, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

Sides square off in fight to hike tax on tobacco.  Come November, Californians will be asked to impose the biggest tax increase ever on tobacco products, a change that healthcare advocates believe will reduce cigarette consumption, but some officials think will increase cigarette smuggling.

Cigarette Taxes Are Fueling Organized Crime.  Come July 1, New York City's smokers will be paying on average $9 a pack for legal cigarettes.  But if history is any guide, most cigarettes sold will actually be trucked up from Virginia, or shipped in from China, by "butt-leggers" who can make over $1 million on each tractor-trailer load of smuggled smokes.  The blunt fact, which politicians of both political parties are determined to ignore, is that high cigarette taxes in New York have led to a bloody, decades-long smuggling epidemic.

Cigarette Smuggling:  While it's politically popular to impose confiscatory taxes on America's 40 million tobacco smokers, there are a number of consequences one might consider, but let's start out with a quiz.  If a carton of cigarettes sells for $160 in New York City, and $35 in North Carolina, what do you predict will happen?  If you answered tons of cigarettes will be going up I-95 from North Carolina to New York City, go to the head of the class.

N.Y. Smokers Face Highest Tax In Nation.  New Yorkers start paying the highest cigarette taxes in the nation Tuesday [6/3/2008] with the latest $1.25 spike per pack that officials expect to bring in $265 million a year.  Convenience stores across the state and the smokers who will be paying the price are angry about the change, but health officials hail the tax increase as a success.

New York Sets Record Cigarette Tax.  New York's state cigarette tax climbed from $1.50 to $2.75 a pack in June, the highest state cigarette tax burden in the nation. … New York City charges its own $1.50 a pack tax, for state and local taxes totaling $4.25 a pack, said Jeff Lenard, spokesperson for the National Association of Convenience Stores.  The federal excise tax on cigarettes adds 39 cents a pack.

Cigarette Tax Hike:  'Gold Mine' for Smugglers.  The proposed tax hike on cigarettes in the state budget would create a "black market gold mine" for smugglers and force New York smokers to pay the highest taxes in the nation, experts warn.  Facing a $5 billion budget gap, state lawmakers see doubling the state's cigarette tax, to $3 a pack, as a way to help weather a difficult economic period.

Higher Cigarette Taxes Mean More Smuggling.  Here's a puzzle for lawmakers:  If the same percentage of Texans smoke as nationwide — 20 percent — why are sales of tax-paid cigarette sales so much lower in Texas?  The answer:  Texans are smoking millions of bootleg cigarettes smuggled into the state to avoid the tax of 41 cents per pack.  A tractor-trailer holds 200,000 packs, so the profit margin is awfully tempting.

Cigarette Tax Hikes:  A Feeble Attempt to Cut Smoking Rates and Balance the Budget.  Last week, the Kentucky House of Representatives approved a 25 cent increase in the state's cigarette tax in an effort to help eliminate the state's budget deficit. … Higher cigarette taxes are needed, some legislators say, to avoid "deep cuts" in the state's budget.  They find it is easier to balance the budget on the backs of smokers than to cut wasteful spending.

Are Cigarette Taxes Becoming Obsolete?  Social and economic changes force us to ask whether excise taxes are obsolete.  If they are, governments will increasingly find that excise taxes do more harm than good.  Cigarette taxes, because states have raised them precipitously during the past 10 years, provide a good test of the obsolescence theory.

Butt Taxes Go Up in Smoke.  The city hauled in $123 million in cigarette taxes last year — but lost about $40 million to tax-evading smokers, according to a study released yesterday [10/19/2007].

Tobacco Tax Increase Will Cost Wisconsin.  On January 1, the tax for a pack of cigarettes in Wisconsin increased by $1 bringing it to $1.77 per pack. … A tobacco tax, aside from being dramatically regressive, is a thoroughly unreliable stream of revenue for health care expansion; at the end of the day, you will need more smokers or the imposition of higher taxes on workers and consumers.

Indiana Nearly Doubles Its Cigarette Tax.  Hoosiers will pay an additional 44 cents per pack, with about 33 cents of that tax going directly to [Governor Mitch] Daniels' plan to subsidize health insurance for lower-income Indiana citizens.  Hoosiers will pay a total tax of 99.5 cents per pack. … "Increasing the tax on cigarettes does not answer our objects of an overall health plan for Indiana," said Craig Ladwig, president of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation.  "In fact, it just adds the onus of socialized medicine to legislative moralizing."

Drop in Smoking Means Less Tax Revenue.  Across the country, states are putting their treasuries under pressure by adopting smoking restrictions as well as higher cigarette taxes, which appear to be discouraging people from lighting up, as many health activists had hoped would happen.

Cook County Doubles Its Cigarette Tax.  The Cook County, Illinois tax on cigarettes has doubled to $2 a pack, giving the city of Chicago the highest cigarette tax in the nation.  County, city, state, and federal taxes on cigarettes now total $4.05 a pack in Chicago.

[Remember, $4.05 per pack is just the tax, not the total price.  The stores also charge an additional fee for the cigarettes themselves.  It's no wonder that cigarettes are used as money in prisons.

Cigarette Tax Doesn't Live Up to its Promise.  The $1.425 state excise tax [in the state of Washington] is now one of the highest in the nation.  There comes a point when taxes on a product will eventually stunt the overall volume of sales — therefore negating a once-promised high source of revenue.  The evidence suggests this has been happening with cigarettes for quite some time.

NYC Seeks to Tax and Fine Online Cigarette Buyers.  New York City residents who purchased smokes over the Internet are facing huge fines and garnishment of their wages for failing to pay city cigarette taxes. … New York City has the highest cigarette taxes in the nation.  The state tax on one pack of cigarettes is $1.50.  The city tax adds another $1.50.  The federal tax is 39 cents a pack, for a total tax of $3.39 per pack.

Harm's a two way street.  The largest losers of America's anti-tobacco crusade aren't tobacco companies and smokers, it's the American people who are incrementally giving up private property rights.

Cigarette Smuggling:  Diverse state tobacco taxes are a key reason for cigarette smuggling, in which organized crime and terrorist groups increasingly are involved.  A July 21 article in the Detroit News quoted John D'Angelo of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms as saying, "There is no doubt that there's a direct relationship between the increase in a state's tax and an increase in illegal trafficking."

Cigarette Tax Lessons from Oregon:  The Governor should be wary of increasing cigarette taxes, or any tax for that matter, in light of the election night results from Oregon.  Oregon voters were asked to increase their cigarette tax by $0.845 to $2.02 per pack from $1.18 per pack in order to fund expansion of the State Children Health Insurance Program-commonly referred to as SCHIP. … The ballot measure was rejected by a resounding 60-40 margin.

Smokers Head for the Border to Avoid Cigarette Tax Increase.  Guy Arrans, chief operating officer at St. Joseph-based Primar Petroleum, said the tax increase is going to hurt business at the 14 area convenience stores and gas stations Primar owns and the 30 other independently owned stations it supplies.  "They're building more and more of the budget on smokers but they keep saying they want people to quit," he said.  "Why would they build a budget on what they hope will be a vanishing tax base?"  Arrans also pointed out that, since Michigan charges sales tax atop the cigarette tax, the real tax is $2.12 [per pack, compared to a 55.5 cents per pack in Indiana.]

States Blow Tobacco Funds on Budget Smorgasbord.  States spent two-thirds of tobacco settlement money on government programs unrelated to health care in 2005, according to an annual survey released [in April 2005] by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

How to identify American totalitarians:  In America today, two groups are most actively engaged in falsifying history:  the ACLU and the anti-smoking movement.  The ACLU is suing cities and counties to remove crosses from their city and county seals. … Examples of anti-smoking fanatics doctoring photographs [to remove cigarettes] are so legion that I can only offer a few examples in the space of a column.

Cigarettes are one possible motive for crash burglaries.  The price of a pack of cigarettes is apparently enough to prompt a group of thieves to steal cars, ram them into Twin Cities convenience stores after hours and scoop up packs of smokes and other goods to sell on the street.

The government often plays the role of a heavy-handed nanny, not just a tax collector, when it goes to great lengths to discourage smoking.  That discussion is on another page.

Illinois Brothers Charged with $10 Million Cigarette Tax Scam.  Two brothers from the Chicago suburb of Burbank, Illinois were arrested June 6 for allegedly diverting millions of dollars in taxes on sales of tobacco products.

Cigar Tax Up 6,000% to Pay for SCHIP.  The increase in federal tobacco taxes that congressional Democrats are proposing to fund their new healthcare initiative is being praised by anti-smoking advocates as an effective way to discourage tobacco sales. … The tax hikes would include raising the federal cigarette tax from 39 cents to one dollar.  Additionally, the tax cap on cigars would be raised from five cents to three dollars, a 6,000 percent increase.

Did someone mention SCHIP?

Taxes on Smokeless Tobacco are Unfair and Ineffective.  In recent years, controversy in many state legislatures has erupted over the right way to tax smokeless tobacco.  It is not immediately clear why some states outside the South tax smokeless tobacco so heavily and some so lightly, nor why some base their tax on weight and others on price.  Assuming the role of government is to prevent individuals from harming one another, and not to prevent individuals from harming themselves, then special taxes on tobacco products should exist only if those products impose significant costs on third parties.



A national sales tax:  Representative John Linder, a Georgia Republican, has a 133-page bill to replace 55,000 pages of tax rules.  His bill would abolish the IRS and the many billions of tax forms it sends out and receives.  He would erase the federal income tax system and replace it with a 23 percent national sales tax on personal consumption.

On the other hand...
The national sales tax:  I have written many times before about what a dopy idea I think this is. … The national retail sales tax would tax 100 percent of services, including medical services and government services.  Every time you go to the hospital, you will have to pay 30 percent on top to the federal government.

A Hacksaw for Our Government Shackles:  The top benefit of a national sales tax would supposedly be reduced bureaucracy or even elimination of the IRS.  Don't bet on it.  Forty-three states with income taxes rely heavily on federal enforcement to ensure compliance.  With that enforcement gone, forty-three state bureaucracies would end up performing drastically more audits.  And for a national sales tax to correlate with existing state collections, the five states without sales taxes would have to create brand new agencies.

National sales tax:  There's no question that tax reform is needed, but tax reform is secondary to a much larger issue — federal spending.  From 1787 to 1920, except during war, federal spending was a mere 3 percent of GDP, compared to today's 20 percent.  If the federal government takes only 3 percent of the GDP, just about any tax system is relatively non-oppressive.

Okies Enjoy Largest Tax Cut in State History.  The tax cut package passed only months after Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, which they had last controlled in 1921-22.

Do you trust your neighbor to pay taxes?  Journalists invent sources.  Employees loot their employers to the tune of $50 billion per year.  Shoppers make off with about $13 billion worth of products through shoplifting every year.  No one obeys speed limits.  Are we then to believe that only a small minority of taxpayers, offered the opportunity to cheat such an impersonal entity as the U.S. Treasury, are declining to do so?

Scrap the tax code.  "There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule," is an old Texas axiom, and it applies to simplification of the U.S. tax code, which is outdated, overly complex and exceedingly resistant to reform.  The tax code now exceeds a staggering 60,000 pages, prompting Americans to waste 6.2 billion hours just completing their returns every year.  Deciphering it costs the country $203.4 billion a year, according to the Tax Foundation.  Its complexities generate additional job-killing distortions throughout our economy.

2005 Tax Freedom Day Falls on April 17.  That's the day when "Americans stop working to pay taxes and begin working for themselves."

"Our Taxes Are Too High," Americans Say.  Tax Freedom Day calculates the day each year when we stop working for government and start working for ourselves.  In effect, this measures taxes as a share of aggregate income.  Last year, taxes took 29.1 percent of income by this measure, down from a recent high of 33.6 percent in 2000.  In short, the tax burden is well above the level that at least two-thirds of Americans think should be the maximum and right at the level that 90 percent believe should be the absolute limit.

Chart shows Tax Freedom Day by State, 2006.

Tax Burdens and Tax Freedom Day.  Tax Freedom Day is the day when the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay off its total tax bill for the year.  Tax Freedom Day provides Americans with an easy way to gauge the overall tax take — a task that can otherwise be daunting due to the multiplicity of taxes at various levels of government and "hidden" taxes and fees that are often buried in the cost of living.

Let's Scrap the Code!  Our tax system needs to be changed.  Every year, Americans spend 6.2 billion frustrating hours fighting forms and figures, digging for documentation, and checking and rechecking their math to make sure everything is right.  That's because our archaic 60,000 page tax code is mired in special interest loopholes.

The Law That Never Was:  In 1984, William J. Benson began a research project, never before performed, to investigate the process of ratification of the 16th Amendment.  When his year long project was finished at the end of 1984, Bill had visited every state capitol and knew that not a single state had actually and legally ratified the proposal to amend the Constitution.  Thirty-three states engaged in the unauthorized activity of amending the language of the amendment proposed by Congress, a power the states do not possess.

When It Comes to Taxes, We Need Some Real Pain.  Actually writing out checks to the government generates a lot more thinking and questions about the size and scope of government.  From 1913 to 1942, income taxes were paid in quarterly installments during the year after the income was earned.  Returning to such a system would mean that all income earners would have to sit down four times a year and write out a check to the government.

Study Finds Controversial Jock Taxes Spreading.  The jock taxes are so named because they require traveling professional athletes and other team employees to pay income taxes in every state where games are played.  "This is a real slippery slope," said Andrew Chamberlain, a Tax Foundation spokesperson.  "If jock taxes continue to be applied this aggressively, more and more professionals that travel to other states are going to be subject to them.  Eventually, a traveling executive would have to pay tax in every state that he visits during the year.  That creates an untenable level of complexity."

Government Workers: Working Hard or Hardly Working?  People who have waited on line or on hold or who have heard "that's not my area" too often wonder if anyone works in federal agencies let alone if those working know what they are doing.  Often they do not:  a 2003 study disclosed that the IRS gives incorrect answers or no answer at all 43 percent of the time!

Wireless Phone Costs Drop, but Taxes Skyrocket.  Taxes on wireless telephone service in the United States have climbed nine times faster than those on general business since January 2003, putting a damper on the growing use of wireless communications, according to Jim Schuler, director of policy at the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.

Tax-free Internet Access Might End November 1.  If the 1998 Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA) is not extended, consumers may pay taxes to access the Internet this fall.  Congress will either need to extend or make permanent the federal ban that expires on November 1 to keep Internet access tax-free.

Top 10 Wireless Tax States.  Since 1993 the average wireless phone customer's monthly bill has gone down almost 37 percent, while minutes of use have increased about 300 percent … but some state legislatures see wireless service as an easy target and are taxing it more and more.

Taxing Forests to Death.  Proponents of the estate tax claim it affects only the very rich.  However, forest owners, many of whom are cash-poor, are more likely to incur the estate tax than the general population.  Suburban growth has caused timber prices to rise; thus substantial increases in the value of forest acreage are not unusual.

Estate tax questions.  Financial advisers today tell middle class couples that they will need at least $1 million in financial assets to live comfortably in retirement.  And with the big run-up in housing prices in recent years, it is not at all uncommon for middle class families to live in $600,000 homes.

The IRS vs. Foreign Investment:  Foreigners have invested more than $1 trillion in capital in the United States since 1984, when Congress and the Reagan administration established a policy of not taxing interest they earn on U.S. bank deposits.  This influx of capital will be jeopardized if a proposed IRS rule is implemented.

Tax Cuts and the Rich:  High tax rates on the wealthy may make the promoters of economic class warfare feel good, but they do not raise revenue for the federal government.

Pennsylvania Voters Want Property Tax Reform; Legislators Ignore Them.  "This poll confirms what policymakers have known for years," said Matthew J. Brouillette, president of the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Foundation.  "Pennsylvanians want the same protections that citizens in an overwhelming majority of other states have.  They want the power to approve or veto future school property tax increases."

What is the FairTax?  The FairTax, pending in Congress as HR 25 and S 1493, is a non-partisan proposal that would abolish all federal income taxes, including payroll, self-employment, alternative minimum, income, capital gains, corporate, and death taxes, replacing them with a simple, visible, federal sales tax.

They're gaining in the poles…
Wooden Telephone Pole Tax.  An attempt to raise taxes on New Hampshire phone calls.  The magic show where politicians claim businesses can make money appear from nowhere used to be convincing.  But today's economically savvy voters will no longer be fooled by this sleight-of-hand pick-pocket scam that has too often left them wondering where their money has gone.  Voters today know that, in the end, only people pay taxes.

 Editor's Note:   What would be the purpose of taxing telephone poles, and what good could result from this tax?  Is this just a way to compel people to switch to cell phones?  Or was this proposal cooked up by a tree-hugging liberal who opposes the harvesting of trees?  (Does the tax apply to metal poles, too?)  In any event, there aren't very many new telephone poles installed on a typical day, except after a storm, and there certainly aren't many poles which carry telephone lines exclusively — most carry power lines and other utilities as well.

The FICA slush fund:  This time each year, as we all go through the ritual torture of filling out our income-tax forms, we hear a crescendo of complaints from friends, neighbors and co-workers about how unfair, complex, onerous and contradictory the tax code is — and they're right.

Simplify the Tax Code with a Flat Tax:  The income-tax system began in 1913 as a two-page form backed by 14 pages of law. Today, we struggle with 742 different forms and 254 separate publications, backed by more than 17,000 pages of law.

The "progressive" taxman cometh.  In an ideal world, every person and every corporation would pay the same tax rate on their income, with no deductions for anything.  A universal flat tax rate would be fair, and for most people, the rate would be lower than the rate now being paid.  A single tax rate would reduce the IRS bureaucracy to a mere shadow of itself.  Tax attorneys and CPAs would need to find productive work.  First-time employees and low-wage earners could assume the same tax responsibility everyone else bears.  Tax returns could, indeed, be no more complicated than a postcard.

The U.S. Income Tax Burden: An Analysis of CBO Numbers.  An enormous percentage of taxes are payed by a minority of Americans.  The Top 1% of taxpayers pay 29% of all taxes.  The Top 5% of taxpayers pay 50% of all taxes.

Tax system punishes success:  According to tax data released by the IRS in 2000, the top 5 percent of wage earners pay nearly 57 percent of all income taxes collected annually; the top 10 percent pay 67.3 percent; the top 50 percent pay more than 96 percent of all income taxes.

High Tax Republicans Replacing "Tax and Spend" Democrats?  A new tax revolt may be in the works.  Only this time, the "bad guys" are Republicans.  Taxpayers in several states are complaining the GOP politicians they put in office are acting like Democrats when it comes to spending their hard-earned dollars.

Theft of your labors:  Americans collectively spend more on government today than they do on food, clothing and shelter combined.  Much of that biggest expense in their budget is based on this wacky notion of the sliding scale.  You pay one price, your neighbor pays another.  And those who pay the most get the least in return.

Winning The War Over Liberalism:  A review of "Let Freedom Ring — Winning the War of Liberty Over Liberalism", by Sean Hannity.  "Government spending is at an all-time high.  And the tax burden is at a record high, having skyrocketed during the Clinton-Gore years," Hannity writes.

Death to the death tax:  It's time for the Senate to join the House in repealing, once and for all, the socialistic death tax monster, whose only remaining purpose is to serve as ammunition for class warfare demagogues.

Does Bigger Government Help the Poor?  Higher tax burdens are associated with greater poverty.  Big government that is tax-financed is more likely to add, rather than subtract, from poverty rolls.

This next one is a broken link, but I'm trying to track it down somewhere else.
Evaluating the Incentives to Stay in the Welfare System:  A family with $12,600 in earnings before taxes pays $1,251 in taxes but gets back an EITC of $2,247 for a total of $13,596.  [A negative income tax!]

What's the Worst Tax for Texas?  A new study unveiled in Midland finds that an income tax would be a drag on Texas' economy, and suggests that reliance on sales taxes and user-fees will harm economic growth the least.

Collection Contributions:  The IRS uses an illegal quota system that rewards agents for the amount of money they collect.

"Global Tax Police" Under ScrutinyHouse Majority Leader Dick Armey says a Paris organization is trying to initiate a "global network of tax police" targeting low-tax nations such as the United States.

Income Tax Withholding Called "Triumph of Big Government":  Americans are now in their 60th year of having income taxes withheld from their paychecks.  And the National Taxpayers Union, no friend of the Internal Revenue Service, is condemning the law for having created a "bloated" welfare state that lacks accountability and punishes taxpayers.

Maine tops in taxes per person:  Mainers paid 14.5 percent of what they earned to the state and local government for income, sales and property taxes, the New York Times reported recently.  New Yorkers came in second place at 14.2 percent.



"The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."
— Will Rogers          


Part 1.1 - The Proposed "Odometer Tax"

Odometer tax proposal likely to stallTransportation chief says fees on miles driven would turn all roads into "toll booths."  (This is a very bad idea, but taxpayers are spending $700,000 to study it!)  "Fears about spying are unfounded, said David Forkenbrock, director of the University of Iowa's Public Policy Center.  The system would only track miles traveled, not destinations..., Forkenbrock said."

Similar story:  Big Brother eyes taxes by the mile:  State considers space-based technology to collect revenue.

E-tracking may change the way you drive.  The U.S. Department of Transportation has been handing millions of dollars to state governments for GPS-tracking pilot projects designed to track vehicles wherever they go.  So far, Washington state and Oregon have received fat federal checks to figure out how to levy these "mileage-based road user fees."

Pay-as-you-drive?  The British government is considering scrapping fuel tax and replacing it with a new road charge based on the distance and time motorists travel.

Fighting back:
GPS NMEA spoofing.  Chris Barron is getting pretty unnerved by the UK moving to charging for road use based on GPS coordinates.  He built [a] device to prove that GPS data can be spoofed and shouldn't be relied upon.  He promises future firmware updates that will provide two knob etch-a-sketch style path control.

State Tracking Of Auto Movements By GPS Called "Nutty":  If a proposal by an Oregon State task force becomes law, the government would be able to use satellite equipment to keep track of each driver's mileage and tax that driver accordingly in order to pay for road repairs.

The mileage tax:  coming soon?.  The Oregon Department of Transportation plans to test a system of charging by the mile next year in Portland.  The pilot program does not have much visibility yet, so it is not controversial.  It should be.  Pilot programs have a way of becoming permanent programs.  Taxing highway use by the mile rather than by gallons consumed is a radical shift in the tax burden.  It discriminates against motorists who live in sparsely populated parts of Oregon to solve a problem that exists largely in the Willamette and Rogue Valleys and Central Oregon.

Runnin' on Empty.  For more than a year, David Porter and David Kim, two professors at Oregon State University, have been developing a prototype GPS mileage-data unit and an odometer-based mileage collection system.  The wallet-sized GPS device would be mounted inside a vehicle's engine compartment or under the dashboard.  The system also requires an antenna for receiving information from GPS satellites and transmitting mileage data to readers at gas stations.  The readers would electronically pull miles-traveled information from drivers' GPS units or odometer tags, apply the proposed 1.25 cent per mile tax and add that amount directly to their gasoline purchase.

The Wacky World of Oil:  Taxes — at every level — are the major component of gasoline.  All states tack on the standard Federal Excise Tax and a State Excise Tax, and many cities and counties throughout the USA add local sales, usage and consumption taxes.  New York, California and a dozen other states add a sales tax to top it off.  That's right, they tax the tax.  Add in the taxes … and perhaps 50% of the cost of our gasoline goes to the government.

Driving While Intaxicated:  While the state [of Oregon] sees the concept as the perfect replacement for its existing gasoline tax, privacy watchdogs are calling foul play over a plan that turns Big Brother into the ultimate backseat driver.  And environmentalists are concerned that the plan reduces the incentive to purchase fuel-efficient vehicles. ... "We're also looking at variable pricing and congestion pricing," [one of the developers] said, "and we could even do different time-of-day rates."  For example, the state could make it more expensive to drive downtown during rush hour than it would be to cover the same ground during a midnight munchie run when the streets are deserted.

Somewhat related...
Attaching a GPS Locator System to a Car:  Is It A "Search"?  Global Positioning Systems (GPS) are being used ever more in our nation and across the world.  Law enforcement as well has a strong interest in the use of such devices in order to locate specific vehicles or to conduct surveillances electronically and surreptitiously.  But is the use of such devices by police subject to the restrictions imposed on public authority by the Fourth Amendment?

 Commentary:   An "odometer tax" is a tax based on the number of miles travelled.  It assumes that a car stays on public roads all the time.  But how is the mileage calculated?  How do you measure the distance from Point A to Point B without knowing the location of both points, and how would the average user know if his or her position was being reported or not?

The most likely result is this:  Every vehicle would contain a "black box" (another one!) that would keep track of the vehicle's location, perhaps every minute, and possibly every second of the day.  The data could be "dumped" out of the black box through a wireless connection whenever the car visits a gas station, or through direct contact when the vehicle is taken in for a mandatory annual state inspection.  Some kind of feature would be incorporated to keep the car from running in the absence of GPS information, which means that if the GPS antenna breaks, or the car spends more than a few minutes in a tunnel or parking garage (or anywhere GPS signals don't go), the engine would quit.  Numerous other unintended consequences will inevitably develop from this kind of Orwellian scheme.

(Note that GPS is a transmit-only navigation system.  Contrary to common misconceptions, information is not transmitted to the GPS satellites by anyone other than the US military.)

There are serious risks connected with over-reliance upon (and excessive faith in) computers of all kinds.  "Sanity checking" of the data is a must.  There are people who believe everything they read on a computer screen.  When they are the ones assessing taxes, we're all in trouble.  If the GPS-based odometer says that I drove 9000 miles yesterday, the minimum-wage clerks at the courthouse aren't likely to refute it.

GPS receivers often report speed and position incorrectly.  I have a hand-held GPS device that I use as a speedometer in my car.  At the moment it says that my maximum speed was 443 mph.  I don't remember going that fast, but at least I don't have to explain the anomaly to a municipal court judge.

Forgive me for ranting, but the proposed "odometer tax" is just another bad idea produced by the people who believe that the proper role of government is to provide, control, regulate and tax everything.  If the general public wasn't so poorly educated, this idea would never have been proposed, for a number of reasons:

(1)  This issue probably will not be put to a vote.  Politicians love to develop new means of taxation, especially if they involve computer technology, which they perceive as infallible.

(2)  Every motor vehicle has an odometer already, and the odometer reading is recorded when the vehicle gets an annual state inspection.  Tampering with an odometer is already prohibited by state law.

(3)  Vehicles tracked by satellite would presumably pay the odometer tax even when traveling on toll roads, parking lots and privately owned roads.  Excursions into Canada and Mexico would most likely be taxed as well.  (What happens if you have your car shipped to Hawaii?)

(4)  A taxation system based on GPS would be easily spoofed because the signals from the GPS satellites are very weak, the GPS system is not resistant to jamming, and GPS does not work at all in tunnels or parking garages.

(5)  People may argue that the odometer tax is only fair, because taxpayers who walk to work, take the bus, or ride a bicycle, should not have to support the highway system.  But taxpayers who have no children in public schools are still required to support those schools, and most taxpayers support dozens of other government services which they don't use.

(6)  You're already paying gasoline taxes for the use of the highways!

(7)  Ideas like this always expand, as new uses are found for them.  Eventually, a system like this could easily supply evidence of your whereabouts at any moment in your car's history.  It will become obvious where you spend your time — where you live, where you go to church, where you shop.  If your car was stopped in an area when and where a crime was committed, you could be a suspect.  If you're pulled over for having a headlight out, the traffic cop could interrogate you car's computer to see if you've been speeding.

It's not just a "nutty" idea, it is an insidious and somewhat frightening idea.



Part 2 - The IRS:

IRS fraudulent refunds total an estimated $318M.  Internal Revenue Service gave away $318 million in improper refunds this year because a computer program that screens tax returns for fraud wasn't working, according to a report released Friday [9/1/2006].

Long list of politically motivated IRS audits.  Anecdotes are evidence, when presented in sufficient quantity.

Apparently there is some evidence in the the Barrett Report that the IRS was used as a weapon by the Clinton Administration, which is why the report is being aggressively suppressed.  If the public ever finds out that the IRS has been used in such a manner, the fund-raising arm of the government would be in big trouble.  Politicians might have to stop spending money so recklessly.  Who knows what might happen then?

IRS, Justice Target Undisclosed Assets In Swiss Accounts.  A lawyer who specializes in tax cases, [Edward M.] Robbins thinks the government is gearing up to prosecute large numbers of Americans for failing to disclose foreign accounts on their tax returns and evading taxes on income generated by the accounts.  "If I were one of these guys with 10 to 50 million in my account, I'd be having an aneurysm," Robbins said.  "It's an extremely dangerous situation for these guys.

FBI Twist in Spitzer Probe.  Gov. Spitzer is being blamed for siccing the FBI on Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno — after earlier accusations that he unleashed the State Police, and tried to unleash the Internal Revenue Service, on him as well.

Scrap the tax code.  The tax code now exceeds a staggering 60,000 pages, prompting Americans to waste 6.2 billion hours just completing their returns every year.  Deciphering it costs the country $203.4 billion a year, according to the Tax Foundation.  Its complexities generate additional job-killing distortions throughout our economy.  Indeed, the tax code is so complicated and expansive that it now touches nearly every aspect of our lives.

I.R.S. Enlists Help in Collecting Delinquent Taxes.  If you owe back taxes to the federal government, the next call asking you to pay may come not from an Internal Revenue Service officer, but from a private debt collector.  Within two weeks, the I.R.S. will turn over data on 12,500 taxpayers — each of whom owes $25,000 or less in back taxes — to three collection agencies.  Larger debtors will continue to be pursued by I.R.S. officers.

Sick-Leave Abuse Prompts Calls to Compensate for Unused Time.  At the Internal Revenue Service, one employee over a two-year period took sick leave on 13 of the 14 Tuesdays after a Monday holiday.  That's an extreme case of sick-leave abuse, but the IRS employee had plenty of co-workers who also liked to take Tuesdays off, a report by the Inspector General for Tax Administration found.

The Editor says...
Most private companies would fire an employee like that, but when you work for Uncle Sam, your job is safe no matter what kind of goldbrick you are.

1040 Checkmate?  On May 12, 2006 in Peoria, Illinois, the attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) begged the court to dismiss all charges against IRS victim Robert Lawrence in federal District Court.  The motion for dismissal came on the heels of a surprise tactic by Lawrence's defense attorney Oscar Stilley.  The tactic threatened exposure of IRS's on-going efforts to defraud the public.  The move put DOJ attorneys in a state of panic that left them with only one alternative:  beg for dismissal, with prejudice.

This was written in 1995:
Why You Can't Trust the IRS:
The IRS telephone taxpayer assistance program provides about 8.5 million Americans the wrong answers to even the most basic inquiries about the tax laws.

This year roughly 10 million Americans will receive correction notices from the IRS assessing about $4 billion.  About half of those notices will be erroneous.

About 40 percent of the revenues the IRS collects through penalty assessments are abated when citizens challenge the penalties.  In 1993 taxpayers were over-charged $5 billion.

A General Accounting Office audit of the IRS in 1993 found widespread evidence of financial malfeasance and gross negligence.  The IRS could not account for 64 percent of its congressional appropriation.
Taming the IRS Pit Bulls:  As IRS agents scan the country looking for the truck driver or restaurant worker who might have cheated the government out of a few bucks, a loophole in the tax code allows major corporations to hide millions of dollars from their tax liability by opening sham offices in Bermuda.

Is the NEA a 'terrorist organization'?  Shortly after stepping off the stage that night to a standing ovation, I was given a message from an angry supporter of the liberal education plan I was opposing.  "You can count on an audit by the IRS," I was told.  I really did not take the comment seriously but, to my amazement, within a matter of a few short weeks, I had my IRS audit notice. ... And since I was not only being critical of the Clinton's education agenda, but also the NEA and PTA, should I have been shocked to be the recipient of extreme and untrue insults, much less the harassment of an IRS audit?

Did someone mention the Teachers' unions?

IRS Policies Result in Unnecessary Taxpayer Harassment.  The National Taxpayer Advocate's report confirms that being honest is simply not good enough when it comes to dealing with the IRS.  The reason is that in all but a few instances, the burden is on taxpayers to prove they do not owe taxes.  The IRS rarely has to prove a person does owe taxes.  The question, moreover, seldom has anything to do with whether the person is a cheater or not.

Top Half of U.S. Income Earners See Tax Burdens Grow.  As the annual tax filing deadline approaches, many public officials traditionally use the occasion to launch into a debate about the fairness of the nation tax laws. … IRS figures released late last year for Tax Year 2003 (for which returns were filed in 2004) show the richest Americans shoulder a disproportionate burden of the federal income tax, and the burden is getting heavier.

AMT Sending Tens of Thousands to Financial Ruin.  Tens of thousands of Americans face financial ruin because they voluntarily reported incentive stock options to the Internal Revenue Service.

When they audited the IRS.  A funny thing happened when the Treasury Department audited the Internal Revenue Service.  It discovered that the IRS was not treating all employers equally.

IRS Laptop Lost With Data on 291 People.  An Internal Revenue Service employee lost an agency laptop early last month that contained sensitive personal information on 291 workers and job applicants, a spokesman said yesterday [6/10/2006].  The IRS's Terry L. Lemons said the employee checked the laptop as luggage aboard a commercial flight while traveling to a job fair and never saw it again.  The computer contained unencrypted names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and fingerprints of the employees and applicants, Lemons said.

Did someone mention lost luggage?

Are your tax records safe?  The Treasury Department last month admitted investigating thousands of cases of IRS employees improperly snooping through taxpayer records.  And although this led to 1,600 "adverse personnel actions" and 126 criminal prosecutions, Treasury officials concede "there has not been a noticeable decrease" over the last eight years in the number of IRS bureaucrats who gain unauthorized access to confidential data.

IRS workers' online time not all work-related.  A sampling of Internal Revenue Service employees found that they used about half their online time at work to visit sex sites, gamble, trade stocks, participate in chat rooms and do other non-work-related activity, the Treasury Department's inspector general said.

Privacy in a Free Country:  In Search of Reasonable Principles.  When more than 500 Internal Revenue Service agents were caught illegally snooping through tax records of thousands of Americans in 1995, only five were fired.  After the IRS developed new privacy protection measures, hundreds more agents were caught doing the same thing again in 1997.

IRS Error Rate Still High.  The January 2004 report of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration confirms the IRS's error rate for advice it gives at its hundreds of walk-in Taxpayer Assistance Centers remains unacceptably high.  The report reveals the IRS provided "flatly incorrect answers 20 percent of the time."  In another 15 percent of the cases, the IRS provided a "correct" answer without first obtaining the background information necessary to provide a correct answer — a serious oversight when providing tax advice.

The Press And Scientology:  For years, Scientology fought a battle with the IRS because the government would not recognize its claim to be a religion.  The IRS finally granted Scientology its desired status under President Bill Clinton, the recipient of massive donations from the Hollywood glitterati.

Politics and IRS Audit Rates.  Congress created the IRS Oversight Board in 1998 after the Senate Finance Committee held public hearings, the first in twenty years, on IRS abuses.  For days the committee heard testimony from angry taxpayers who recounted horror stories of overly aggressive revenue agents exercising seemingly boundless power.  At the conclusion of the hearings the Finance Committee labeled the IRS a rogue agency, but took no direct responsibility for reining it in.

IRS Gives Tax Deduction For Sex Change Operations.  The Massachusetts-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders has recently won a complaint against the IRS over tax deductions for so-called "sex change" operations.  The IRS apparently bought GLAD's bogus argument that sex changes are medically necessary for individuals suffering from Gender Dysphoria.

The Rainforest Action Network:  Major corporations are in the crosshairs of the Rainforest Action Network.  This radical environmentalist group regularly resorts to illegal "direct action" tactics and even exploits school kids in order to intimidate and shake down its business adversaries.  So why does the IRS still grant RAN tax-exempt status?

Survey shows 96% of respondents want IRS Commissioner Rossotti brought to justice.  An overwhelming number of respondents believe that IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti should be criminally prosecuted for conducting politically-motivated audits for the Clinton Administration.  IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti conducted several audits of Clinton's opponents, including women associated with [Clinton] and several non-profit conservative organizations.

Corruption at the IRS:  IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti sued over criminal conflict of interest and cover-up.  "As IRS Commissioner, Rossotti has made decisions concerning a company he founded (and which he still owned stock) that is a major contractor with the IRS."

JFK used audits to silence critics:  In "Power to Destroy:  The Political Uses of the IRS from Kennedy to Nixon," author John A. Andrew III presents new evidence for what he calls "the utilization of the Internal Revenue Service in what became a covert effort to discredit the right and undercut its sources of support" as part of "a broad assault on the right wing by the Kennedy administration."

Global reach of the IRS:  The tax burden on Americans living abroad is so great that many are renouncing their U.S. citizenship to avoid paying the IRS.  The United States is one of just four countries that taxes its citizens even if they are living and working abroad, and it is the only country that insists its citizens pay taxes on global income, capital gains and estates.

The Structure of the IRS:  Collection Division.  The IRS will not leave you alone until you pay up.  They know where you live.  They will bother, harass, nag and pester you until you pay.  They will write, call and visit you until they get their money.  They may even pursue your family after you die!

Reporter targeted by IRS?  Agency circulates in-house memo about "nasty" journalist.

What to Do When the IRS Comes Knocking.

Reference material:  Internal Revenue Manual.

Are you likely to be audited?  Report sees 30% lower chance in "politically protected" districts.

The IRS seems to be used occasionally as a weapon.  You may recall the story of Patricia and Glenn Mendoza, who were arrested for shouting at Bill Clinton in Chicago in 1996.  Of course they were later audited by the IRS.

SBSC Outraged by Calls to Increase Audits of Small Businesses:  The Small Business Survival Committee (SBSC) declared its outrage today [2/14/2003] at the suggestion made by the Sierra Club earlier this week that the IRS should "aggressively audit" businesses that purchase sport utility vehicles, or SUVs.

Juanita's Audit and America's Pravda Press:  Another compilation of dirty tricks.

Protect Your Church From The IRS.  Proposed legislation reverses a 1954 amendment by then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson that permanently extended the reach of the IRS into our nation's churches.  This bill says that the message a church preaches is answerable only to God and not to Caesar — the IRS.

Congress Will Hold Hearing:  Is Income Tax Legitimate? :  In less than two months, Washington may officially acknowledge that you could have been paying your income taxes all these years under a measure that is not valid.

Note:  These hearings were about to take place in the middle of September, 2001, but by then there were more pressing concerns in Washington.

"Walkaround" protest planned for IRSA group that says the 16th Amendment -- which ushered in the federal income tax -- was never properly ratified is planning a "walkaround" protest at the Internal Revenue Service building.  The tax-reform group says action aimed at educating Americans.



The Barrett Report

The public needs to see the Barrett report.  [Sen. Byron Dorgan], along with several crafty Democrats, has been attempting to deny the public the contents of an Independent Counsel's report that is believed to contain evidence of serious corruption and misuse of the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department back in the Clinton Administration.  In this cover-up the Democrats have had assistance from a few dubious Republicans.  It is time to let the public see this report.

Publish the Barrett report now.  At issue was the publication of a report by David Barrett, an independent counsel who has spent the better part of a decade looking into some of the most hair-raising allegations of presidential malfeasance in American history.

Protecting the IRS:  The political significance is that the Barrett report's shocking allegations of high-level corruption in the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department are likely to be concealed from the public and from Congress.  A recently passed appropriations bill, intended to permit release of this report, was altered behind closed doors to ensure that its politically combustible elements never saw the light of day.

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