Nov 15 2006

Good Democrat Idea

15 responses so far

15 Responses to “Good Democrat Idea”

1. buckblog says:

   November 15, 2006 at 11:05 am

   Disagree with you here. The new idea is to outsource the collection of back federal taxes. The old thinking is to let government employees do it. Many states have already hired private companies to deal with their back taxes, with usually favorable results.

2. HaroldHutchison says:

   November 15, 2006 at 12:00 pm

   I don’t like the idea of a more powerful IRS.

3. lurker9876 says:

   November 15, 2006 at 1:40 pm

   I don’t either. Why would you think this is a good idea, AJStrata?

4. Barbara says:

   November 15, 2006 at 2:15 pm

   Several years ago I had a friend who read a book that said income taxes were illegal so he did not pay them for years. Finally decided to settle up and owed $25,000. Couldn’t pay it, of course. The IRS hounded him and garnished his wages so much he couldn’t pay current living expenses. Very bad for a family with 3 children. Taxes and penalties mounted up so much that the payments he made only paid for these. Even though he voluntarily brought this matter to the attention of the IRS he was ruined. I realize he should have paid his taxes on time but should have some leeway since he brought it to their attention. My point is that the IRS used to be absolutely out of control. They destroyed businesses and lives. They confiscated property and closed businesses for a fraction of the taxes owed. It was like they were the gestapo in the power they had. So many people complained that they became a kinder, gentler IRS. At that time they forgave the back taxes this guy had. However he had paid them a lot more than $25,000 before this happened. I, for one, don’t want to see the IRS become this powerful again.

5. crosspatch says:

   November 15, 2006 at 2:20 pm

   I have to go along with the other comments. The IRS can be more efficient by having an outfit that does collections as their primary business do the collections.

   But I have a better idea. If we just had a national sales tax and got rid of personal income taxes, we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this anyway and the government could save billions as the IRS could be srunk to handling corporate income taxes and sales tax collections. No more audits, no more agents, no more collections, no more huge computer systems with every American’s information on file.

   The electricity savings alone would be enormous.

6. Retired Spook says:

   November 15, 2006 at 2:26 pm

   What Crosspatch said.

7. Dorf77 says:

   November 15, 2006 at 2:35 pm

   If there is a TAX there will be someone to check compliance. The tax collecting agency will survive (Damit).

8. TomAnon says:

   November 15, 2006 at 4:05 pm

   Bad idea outsourcing collections. This one would be ripe for abuse. Can you imagine the phone bank working from Bangalore? Then turning the information over to third parties for strong armed extortion. Some things the Government should keep for themselves. This just smacks of kickbacks for political patronage.

9. Ken says:

   November 15, 2006 at 4:46 pm

   The IRS should be abolished and a modest national sales tax instituted.

10. Retired Spook says:

    November 15, 2006 at 5:21 pm

    Alright, Ken!! I guess even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.

11. Barbara says:

    November 15, 2006 at 6:15 pm

    I agree with Retired Spook. It gives me cold chills to agree with Ken but I guess I have to. A national sales tax or even a flat tax would be welcome. I have supported this for years. I was a bookkeeper and an accountant controller for 35 years amd even I had to read and reread the tax code to make out my income tax. and even then made some mistakes. If it was hard for me who was in the business what about people who know nothing about finances. However, the democrats will never pass anything like this because it would reduce government. That’s why they are against private collection companies.

12. buckblog says:

    November 15, 2006 at 6:57 pm

    “Bad idea outsourcing collections. This one would be ripe for abuse. Can you imagine the phone bank working from Bangalore? Then turning the information over to third parties for strong armed extortion. Some things the Government should keep for themselves. This just smacks of kickbacks for political patronage.”

    There obviously need to be some ground rules set such as no offshore outsourcing but collection agencies have successfully done this work for cities and states for nearly 20 years with a pretty good track record. Even IRS employees have been found to abuse taxpayer information so keeping it with them is no guarantee of safety. Agencies will have more motivated employees, are able to operate more efficiently with updated technology and industry knowledge and I doubt it will cost a single federal employee their job. Sure there will be isolated cases of abuse but I’m willing to bet a lot fewer per taxpayer contact than with IRS employees. Remember, these are the same people who only answer taxpayer questions correctly 50% of the time.

13. MerryJ1 says:

    November 16, 2006 at 3:34 am

    Ditto Retired Spook and Barbara — I almost choked when I saw the signature on something I was ‘yes’ nodding to.

    The Fair Tax Act should’ve been given a fighting chance, it’s still the best tax reform idea to come along in my lifetime. It repeals the 16th Amendment and abolishes the IRS; tax collection then essentially shifts to the states via the points-of-sale, which is where it belongs — every state has a department of revenue — and since it’s all a sales tax (which also covers payment for the current and growing Social Security pyramid scheme), individual paychecks would have only state taxes deducted; and the entire underground economy gets mainstreamed and taxed; and since moneyed people no longer would have to hide assets offshore, hundreds of millions would be returned to investment vehicles inside the US, creating and expanding business and job-growth; and since there would no longer be tax imbeds on every product made in the US, there would be an across-the-board retail price reduction on all merchandise purchases of about the same amount as the new sales tax; and since US-based corporations would no longer be double-taxed on their foreign profits, the competitive edge foreign-based corporations enjoy would be neutralized, and many of the US corps that have moved corporate headquarters out of the country would return, bringing their jobs back home (that double tax is as much or more of a factor in US companies leaving than cheap labor).

14. sbd says:

    November 16, 2006 at 6:48 am

    I stumbled across this Supreme Court case a while back and found it rather vague in the final outcome. The case was remanded because the government did not attempt to rebut the defendants belief that he did not have to pay taxes on his wages because wages are not income as described in the Constitution. Instead, they told the jury the belief was unreasonable therefore it was willful.

    JOHN L. CHEEK, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES
    No. 89-658
    SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

    October 3, 1990, Argued
    January 8, 1991, Decided

    In a prosecution, under 26 USCS 7201 and 7203, for”willfully” attempting to evade federal income taxes and “willfully” failing to file federal income tax returns, there is no requirement that a defendant’s claimed good-faith belief must be objectively reasonable if the claimed belief is to be considered as possibly negating the Federal Government’s evidence purporting to show a defendant’s awareness of the legal duty at issue, because
    (1)knowledge and belief are characteristically questions for the factfinder, such as the jury in such a prosecution,
    (2) characterizing a particular belief as not objectively reasonable would (a) transform the inquiry into a legal one, and (b) prevent the jury from considering the issue, and
    (3) while it is proper to exclude evidence having no relevance or probative value with respect to willfulness, (a) it is not contrary to common sense, let alone impossible, for a defendant to be ignorant of the defendant’s duty based on a rational belief that the defendant has no duty, and (b) forbidding the jury to consider evidence that might negate willfulness would raise a serious question under the jury-trial provision of the Federal Constitution’s Sixth Amendment; if a defendant asserts that the defendant truly believed that the Internal Revenue Code did not purport to treat wages as income, and the jury believes the defendant, the Federal Government has not carried its burden to prove willfulness, however unreasonable a court might deem such belief; the jury, in deciding whether to credit such a defendant’s good-faith belief claim, is free to consider any admissible evidence from any source showing that the defendant was aware of the duty to file a return and to treat wages as income, including evidence showing the defendant’s awareness of
    (1) the relevant provisions of the Internal Revenue Code or regulations,
    (2) court decisions rejecting the defendant’s interpretation of the tax law,
    (3) authoritative rulings of the Internal Revenue Service, or
    (4) any contents of the personal income tax return forms and accompanying instructions that make it plain that wages should be returned as income. (Blackmun and Marshall, JJ., dissented in part from this holding.)

    The Supreme Court ruling incorrectly says that the defendant believes that the “IRS Code” does not consider wages as income. That is completely erronious, the defendant believes that the “Constitution”, not the “IRS Code” does not consider wages as income.

    Here is the history of the case before it was before the Supreme Court

    In a federal prosecution in which the defendant was eventually convicted, under 26 USCS 7201 and 7203, on several counts of “willfully” attempting to evade income taxes and “willfully” failing to file federal income tax returns,
    (1) although the defendant admitted that he had not filed returns during the relevant time period, the
    defendant (a) testified that he had attended seminars by a group which believed that the federal tax system was
    unconstitutional, (b) produced a letter from an attorney to the effect that the Federal Constitution’s Sixteenth
    Amendment did not authorize a tax on wages or salaries, but only on gain or profit, (c) offered the defense that he had sincerely believed, during the relevant time period, that the tax laws were being unconstitutionally enforced, and (d) argued that he had acted without the requisite willfulness; but

    (2) the Federal District Court gave the jury (a) initial instructions to the effect that an objectively reasonable, good-faith misunderstanding of the law would negate willfulness, but mere disagreement with the law would not, and (b) supplemental instructions to the effect that (i) a person’s opinion that the tax laws violated his constitutional rights did not constitute a good-faith misunderstanding of the law, and (ii) an honest but unreasonable belief was not a defense and did not negate willfulness.

    On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in affirming the defendant’s convictions, expressed the view that
    (1) the District Court had not erred in instructing the jury that only an objectively reasonable, good-faith misunderstanding of the law negated the statutory willfulness requirement; and
    (2) among the beliefs which were not objectively reasonable were the beliefs that (a) wages are not income, or (b) the tax laws are unconstitutional (882 F2d 1263).
    SBD

15. Barbara says:

    November 17, 2006 at 12:47 am

    I wonder if everybody is aware that the people never voted to pay federal income tax at all. And they certanly never voted to pay this income tax in advance . Congress enacted this legislation all by themselves in order to enlarge and pay for their social programs.

    BTW, if we got a national sales tax or a flat tax, the CPA’s of this country would holler the loudest. That would take away more than half of their business. And HR Block would initiate their own lobby to stop it.