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Visualizing IRS-Gate: Bureaucratic Blunder Or Political Profiling?
The IRS has a known history of scandalous behavior. With Nixon, Johnson, Hoover, Kennedy, and the FBI using the IRS to intimidate their enemies, it's no surprise that people have their eye on the IRS. Now under President Obama, they're at it again, which begs the question: bureaucratic blunder or political profiling?
Source: TopAccountingDegrees.org
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Whatever it is, a noose will take care of it.
That's the only way. How many will have to hang before the rest fall in line.
Who made this infograph ? ...... The IRS ?
They are so horribly understaffed and underfunded, yet they can budget tens of millions over 2 years in conferences and in house promotions ?
The idiot claimed the IRS budget has been cut 17% since 2002.
If you look it up, the IRS bugdget has actually increased nearly 30% since 2002.
2002 = $9.2 billion
2012 = $11.8 billion
As for the number of employees being cut, could that be due to electronic filing along with forms and information available on the internet? You go from processing 100 million paper tax returns to less than 20 million, you won't need as many clerks.
Yeah, this infographic reeks of bullshit.
One part of the info graphic that particularly surprised me was that they said the" landmark Citizens United decision" opened the floodgates by allowing unlimited political contributions:
In 2010, the Supreme Court's landmark "Citizens United" decision cleared the way for corporations and labor unions to raise and spend unlimited sums of money, and register for tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(4).
Now, for the first time, corporations, unions and associations can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on politics... anonymously, and tax-free.
But then continues on that they flagged political groups applying for 501(c)(4) status 2 months later... because they're "underfunded"?
So, 2 months after Citizens United, the IRS decided to start flagging politically sounding groups for further scrutiny. This was in anticipation of the extra burden brought on by the influx of faux conservative social welfare groups.
But if it is now legal under the IRS code for them to spend unlimited sums for political purposes, what is the point of the intense scrutiny, particularly by an "underfunded", "understaffed" IRS?
And somehow, I can't imagine Mr. Soros really cares if the money he spent to acquire the white house would be "deductible." It does show however, a real grass roots effort of common citizens with a vested interest in the country actually trying to combat his overwhelming advantage.
Exactly. That is why the vested interests will fight so hard to kill the grassroots efforts of conservatives with ever means possible. If it gets big enough it will become unstoppable. Must abort it.
I love the "sources" used for this "analysis"...
incl: Bill Moyers, MSNBC, DailyKoss, DailyBeast, CNN
surely there couldn't be any spin on the "facts". My favorite source has to be irehr.org, (Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights - an IRS approved 501c3). pretty discusting imo but then I like my guns and my freedoms
Not surprising that an organization representing the Accounting profession would put this tripe out though. Where would most accountants be without the IRS and our wonderful tax code?
the" eyes wide shut crowd" says :hey they all did it, nuthin here bro, move along move along.
The graphic of the article is one of those visual puzzles: One can see whatever one wants to see. Both sides of the IRS debate (dastardly villain, or just doing its job) can use the image to make a case. Gotta love it.
Is this a trick question? I'll take political profiling for $1 Gazillion, Alex. Congratulations -- you've won Jeopardize your freedom. And it's a daily double. Two life sentences for you for speaking the truth.
The Tea Party may have got better customer service from IRS if it were named the Gluten-Free, No-GMO, Organic, Michelle-garden-seeded, Rainforest-watered, Maquiladora-processed, Carbon-free, Green Tea Party.
But then those organizations would be fucked a few years from now when the Team changes (the Teams even have mascots if you haven't noticed). Absolute power.
You haven't been paying close attention. The IRS "team" are lifelong, hard-core Democrat loyalists, with a powerful union and civil-service protections. Their campaign contributions demonstrate this, irrefutably.
If a Republican president were to attempt to use the IRS to attack progressive interests, these IRS staffers would immediately leak the news to the WaPo and NYT and all the other MSM outlets, and the MSM would _not_ sit on the story until after the election.
Did you read the article, or just wipe your ass with it?
May I infer then, that you are at a loss for an intelligent response?
My response is read the fucking article to which you are allegedly responding Mr. Intelligence.
Why does any one in the Federal Government have any say in how we spend our money or what political orgainizations we support with our money? Have you read the Constitution and more specifically the Bill of Rights or just wipe your ass with it?
you mean like this
In fact, conservatives said so little back then that Fox News apparently doesn’t even know (or is pretending not to know) the Bush administration used the IRS in the same way the Obama adminstration allegedly did.
And here’s the even more incredible thing: the Bush cabal didn’t just use the IRS for its political hackery – it mounted a full-scale government-wide assault on its enemies, marshaling disparate agencies in its smear efforts.
Bush’s use of the IRS was but one part of that larger assault. As my Salon colleague Alex Seitz-Wald notes today in greater detail, in 2005, Bush’s IRS began what became an extensive two-year investigation into a Pasadena church after an orator dared to speak out against President Bush’s Iraq War. Not coincidentally, the Los Angeles Times reports that the church targeted just so happened to be “one of Southern California’s largest and most liberal congregations.” That IRS church audit came a year after it launched a near-identical attack on the NAACP after the civil rights organization criticized various Bush administration policies.
That is not where the story ends, however. The Bush administration’s crusade against its enemies moved from the IRS into the Secret Service.
Under the Republican president, that law enforcement agency was repeatedly deployed to physically block suspected antiwar activists from attending public presidential events. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, the scheme eventually targeted some peaceful antiwar activists for arrest for the alleged crime of “holding up small handwritten protest signs outside the designated zone” of free speech (yes, the Bush White House cemented the precedent that the right to dissent is no longer a fundamental right, but is instead only allowed in certain “free speech zones”). Ultimately, in a case dealing with a man who was arrested for simply telling Vice President Dick Cheney that his “policies on Iraq are disgusting,” the Republican-dominated Supreme Court upheld the Bush administration’s use of “retaliatory arrests” against the administration’s ideological critics.
Then, in 2010, we learned that Bush’s targeting operation was also operating inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Recounting findings from the Justice Department’s Inspector General, the Washington Post reported that “the FBI improperly investigated some left-leaning U.S. advocacy groups after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks…citing cases in which agents put activists on terrorist watch lists even though they were planning nonviolent civil disobedience.”
A year later, we learned that along with the IRS, Secret Service and FBI, the Bush administration may have also been using the Central Intelligence Agency against its political enemies. As the New York Times reported, “A former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information” on prominent Iraq War critic Juan Cole. That story had an eerie similarity to the Bush administration’s effort to out CIA operative Valerie Plame as retribution for her husband’s criticism of that same war.
Oh jesus fucking christ on a 1040 EZ. You people have become completely un-fucking-hinged in your inability to see that THE IRS IS FUCKING EVIL AND PRESIDENTS OF BOTH PARTIES WILL FUCK YOU WITH IT.
Fucking idiots.
Give credit , where credit is due?
The U.S. government is pulling telephone records of millions of domestic customers under a court order to Verizon Communications Inc.'s /quotes/zigman/262341/quotes/nls/vz VZ -1.11% Verizon Business Networks unit, the Guardian reported Wednesday.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/secret-us-order-pulls-mass-verizon-data-report-2013-06-05
Hey, if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. Hold on, someone's knocking on my doo....
LOL
Hopefully its the ghost of Ayn Rand wondering why you want them to eat her.
Evil eats as evil does, yes Pure Evil?
Corrrect. How do we fix it?
The asshats couldn't get pissed in a brewery. Their tinkering with tech is meant to intimidate. Bullies are jerks.
Prisons know that the threat of violence subjugates inmates without the need to inflict violence.
Some sado-masochists get involved. Most don't.
No surrender. This is the way of most people, and the nazionists are having a hissy fit because their unregulated otc derviatives equal to more than global gdp blew up in their face, and they want to make others pay for it....others who are less willing to pay for it.
Spin.
No Spin.
The NSA powerplant in Idaho?
Political profiling, ever since 1913 when the un-Federal no-Reserve Bored of old nazionists, monarchists, vatican bought Wilson who lived to regret their 'help', and said no further independent political action would be possible because those who issue the credit own the country, for their own private profit and power.
You've been had, betrayed, and CONgress is stupid or venal for putting up with this bull$hit. Endless wars for their private profit., their Internationale, their latest scam: unregulated otc derivatives equal to more than global gdp, so the workers, creatives, and makers of this world are debt slaves...all for the few mastering the many.
This Republic, this Constitution, this Bill of Rights deserves patriots, not snivelling internationalists, globalists, tax evaders, political puppets of the Trilateral Commission, and their marketing arm the Bilderberg Group, meeting now in London.
Traders: get off your knees. Yours is the way of the good world: trade without prejudice.
Make money for your family and community, not for the tax thieving nazionists, the Trilateral Commission, and their Bilderberg Group.
Yup, exactly 100 years it took for the Fed Res to destroy the republic and democracy.....
Bring Bush back for another "mission accomplished" photo op.
So we can thank the Supine Court for decreeing that Corporations are individuals.
That leaves individuals as debt serfs to the corporatocracy, who the Supine Court decided can just have their cheeks swabbed and their DNA stolen by the Po-Po's even though they have not been found guilty of any crime.
WELCOME TO THE KLEPTOLIGARCHY FELLOW SERFS!
No surrender.
Stand aside as the venal devour each other at the upper echelons of world politics, and their failed Trilateral Commission experiment.
The Azhkenazi, the nazionists hate each other most.
No surrender here.
Fuck those assholes.
What a bunch of pompous ass-wipes.
They must be using The Constitution and The Federalist Papers for toilet paper in the chambers - judging by their tyrannical leaflets of concupiscient self-importance, arrogance, and ignorance.
We will be just fine with our Constitution, and Bill of Rights. The good must expose the bad, but not take up arms against them on their own turf; their legalistic turf.
Wait. Wait for them to kill each other. They will, and only want us to intervene, get caught in their crosshair.
NO. Step aside. Let them die by their own hand, and venal ways, as per Feinstein whose husband makes most from her CONgress ways, while her voters in CA hate her and him more every day.
The real culprit here is the individual who "interpreted" the law in 1959 to read "primarily". If he's not available for a public vivisection I say we choose one of his direct heirs to pay the price. That's where the original shenanigans started.
The Supremes expanded the concept that corporations are "people" in Citizens United. The opinion was authored by Justice Kennedy. Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas concurred. The wise Latina (largely maligned by the Tea Party) along with her so called "liberal" colleagues Ginsberg, Breyer and Stevens dissented. Go figure. Okay Red Teamers, tell us why this was okay.
As a descendant of the original tea party, I don't give a $hit about the modern incarnation, a pet of globalists, traitors, corporatists, the old international financiers.
My real money vs their venality.
Place your bet.
So you are a Koch? Brother?
No. An original patriot. My family's blood. My money. Be grateful for that. You live because of that.
The problem with you people is that you are ungrateful, and whine when your blood and money is at stake, and you lose.
Loss and gain is part of making community, this Republic.
Pay up or shut up.
Here is why this is OK:
1) The constitution guarantees your right to freedom of speech,
2) The constitution guarantees your right to associate with others, and to petition the government for redress of grievances,
How does it follow, that if you associate with fellow citizens, you lose your right of free speech?
Koch sucker. Where in the Constitution does it discuss the right of international corporations to decide who gets to be elected in the United States?
Right of international corporations. First, tell me where the constitution discusses abortion.
LTER, maybe I'm missing something here, but the ruling just makes competition for political influence cheaper by waiving taxes. Lobbying occured before the ruling; it just wasn't tax deductable.
Of course - the government should not have the power to implement all the laws/regulations that enable it to pander to corporate lobbying in the first place; but that's a separate isue.
ZH is nothing more than a conservative bitch site to make people feel like they are venting....most posts are true here but does it matter anymore??????NO....Lets face it Obama and his masters are 10000000000000 percent smarter than any stinking conservative or republicans, PERIOD....this country has been transformed into a cess pool of liberals and communists that now control the executive branch which now has TOTAL control over the ball-less congress.....Congress, the people, tea party, republicans, supreme court are IRRELEVANT.....fall in line or the IRS and DOJ will make you disapear
You are probably too young to know the name Lord Haw Haw, a propagandist who sought to demoralise others by pretending to be one of the Allies.
A nihilist like banksters are wasteful fools.
No surrender.
You suck......but I think you may be rght.
It appears that he is too young to know about the Internationale, and how internationalists globalists care nothing for any nation, and only care about their money, their power. Endless war is their tool. Schmoozing patriots is how they get it, pure Goebbels.
A man doesn't go to war, only to come home with less than he left, unless he thinks his family is under attack.
Filthy nazionists, globalists, corporatists use all, for their own small number profit and power. Filth, they are.
Traders: be ruthless now. For you, your family, your country. Defy the biggest banksters who use you, and their appointed failed political pets.
+ 1/2
That logo is now meaningless to me.
In 'Section 2' I doubt the conservatives spend 7x more then the lib's. source?
It's called the small print at the bottom of the image. Sources are laid out for you. I won't hold your hand in getting to what would conflict with your obvious confirmation bias.
Oh, well, maybe just one:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/05/conservative-groups-granted-exem...
It's hard as fuck being a white man these days.
The deck is stacked against us.
its cause the man is keeping us down.
'cuz', not 'cause'
I got a better graphic
How many politicians at the federal level were audited?000000000000000000000000000
How many Supremes were audited. 000000000000000000000000000
How many people in the administration were audited?000000000000000000000000000
How many people that work for the IRS were audited?000000000000000000000000000
Federal workers owe an approximate 1 billion in back taxes, how many will be collected on?000000000000000000000000000000000
Suck my right nut Moochelle, Queen of the Yeti clan.
By the way, that jizzum swallowing war mongering turd burglar Lindsey Groin thinks bloggers should not be afforded First Amendment Rights. You know them rights that they neither bestowed or have the balls to come to your home personally to try and "take"?
Check out "new york state senate bill S.2402" to really get your irish up.
Holy shit...
ALBANY, NY - The New York State Senate today passed a bill that creates the crime of aggravated harassment of a police or peace officer. The bill (S.2402), sponsored by Senator Joe Griffo (R-C-I, Rome) would make it a felony to harass, annoy, or threaten a police officer while on duty.
"Our system of laws is established to protect the foundations of our society," Senator Griffo said. "Police officers who risk their lives every day in our cities and on our highways deserve every possible protection, and those who treat them with disrespect, harass them and create situations that can lead to injuries deserve to pay a price for their actions."
The bill establishes this crime as a Class E Felony, punishable by up to four years in prison.
"At a time when shocking incidents of disrespect and outright confrontation are at an all-time high, the men and women who patrol the streets of our cities deserve every possible protection we can offer them," Griffo stated.
"My bill would make it a crime to take any type of physical action to try to intimidate a police officer. This is a necessary action because we can see from the rise in incidents that too many people in our society have lost the respect they need to have for a police officer. We need to make it very clear that when a police officer is performing his duty, every citizen needs to comply and that refusal to comply carries a penalty."
"Professionally, I am grateful to see this bill pass through the Senate. Our police officers have a very dangerous job and need the support of our government leaders to help make them safe," said Utica Police Department Chief Mark Williams. "All too often persons are physically challenging police officers in the line of duty."
The bill is being sent to the Assembly.
Yes and the Authority and political elites are the main culprits in society that have lost the respect they need to have for an american taxpayer.
Wasn't it already illegal to physically challenge a police officer in the line of duty? Something about assault and or obstruction. Sort of redundant in that area, but the real wrinkle the rather subjective nature of what the definition of "harass and annoy" are. The police are annoyed when you want to use the constitution to prevent them from just doing what they want without going by the book. So demanding a search warrant from an officer before he enters your home without probable cause is now against the law because it is annoying to the officer?
IRS (dick) heads pictured above- jew, jew and jew- hey- I'm seeing a pattern here.
The one thing that makes no sense to me is the excuse that the IRS is understaffed. That might explain them let unqualified applicants through due to lack of investigation, but it makes no sense that they would go to such unprecidented lengths of examination if they were truely short staffed. When you are overloaded and underwater you cut corners, you don't pull out the microscope.
Have you ever heard of a govt bureaucracy that does not claim it is "understaffed" and "underfunded"?
A reminder: They are saying that as they hire some 16,000 IRS agents for Obamacare and their nazi implementation they have planned.
No government employee should be able to invoke the 5th amendment right when the questions are related to the duties performed in government service. These people are paid BY THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER and as such should have to answer for their actions in the performance, non performance or flat out insubordination to the TAXPAYER. By the way whatever happened to Jessie Jackson Jr.? I bring this up because an elected official should NOT BE ABLE TO HIDE behind medical privacy laws as it is a reflection of their abilities to perform their duties and their employer, THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER has the right to know whether or not they are fit to hold office. It is especially important that a government official not be allowed to hide behind "medical issues and the privacy protections" when in fact they are under investigation of improper and criminal allegations.
With the electronic medical records the government/insurance industry is certainly controlling what our private medical information and making determinations of what treatments/medications we the people are allowed get regardless of what our personal doctor says.
You are correct, they can't refuse to testify unless they are Demoncrats with Abraham Hussein Roosevelt covering their backsides.
The IRS is the baliff for the owners of the world, now meeting in London including Bernanke and Patreus, under the heading of the Bilderberg Group, the marketing arm of the Trilateral Commission, founded by nazionist Rockefeller and Rothschild.
I'm bored with this IRS window dressing.
Are you?
PS
FCK YOU, Peter Mandelson paedophile, New Labour no labour, shill for warmongers, nazionists, 'global consultant' of the Bilderberg Group, and your nancy boy Frances Maude, and paedophile Ken Clarke, CONservative pals, liars.
Obama considers the peole who did not vote for him the enemy.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1303178.html
Federal employees can be compelled to answer questions truthfully. If they refuse to answer, they can be fired and never hold another government position. If they do not answer truthfully, they can be prosecuted. That's the way I understand the law. Congress can issue a warning (I don't recall the term) to Lerner based on established law and she must comply.
Maybe someone knows the warning?
You said it better than I did. Thanks!
Until July 19, 2013, information on every Verizon call is going to the NSA The Patriot Act is now truly the Commissar Act under Obama and his perjuring flunkie, AG Eric Holder.
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that, the Custodian of Records shall produce to the National Security Agency (NSA) upon service of this Order, and continue production on an ongoing daily basis thereafter for the duration of this Order....an electronic copy of the following tangible things: all call detail records or "telephony metadata" created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.
Telephony metadata includes comprehensive communications routing information,. including but not limited to session identifying information (e.g., originating and terminating telephone number... and time and duration of call.
Telephony metadata does not include the substantive content of any communication, as defined by 18 U.S.C. ? 2510(8), or the name, address, or financial information of a subscriber or customer.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2336659/NSA-collecting-phone-records-MILLIONS-Verizon-customers-daily-secret-order-issued-April-lasts-July.html#ixzz2VOkEmamc
It seems intuitively obvious to me that the IRS got their orders from the White House; that's why what's her name took the Fifth; following orders.
Nice try SAT 800 :)
You have been added to the extensive ZH sockpuppet list.
..........................................
This is the post SAT 800 tried to bury by posting garbage:
HEART, your posting frequency has dropped substantially since being asked to explain your egregious Boston Marathon disinfo posts. Is this a coincidence ?
We are still waiting for an explanation but you refuse to respond. Why ?
ZH readers are curious as to why HEART intentionally posts disinfo such as Boston bombing fake injuries / fake blood / crisis actors garbage which is 100% DISINFORMATION.
http://www.zerohedge.com/search/user_comments?name=the+heart
Boston bomb disinfo reposted again by heart #3616167
I have screen caps of your Boston bombing fake injuries / fake blood / crisis actors disinfo posts.
..........................................
ZH is being targeted by FedGov spambots & human operatives saturating the comment sections with garbage and disinformation in addition to down voting certain posters.
They are not harmless trolls, they are professional operatives attempting to undermine and discredit ZH via multi nic sock puppets.
Attacking this post by constant down voting speaks for itself: the shills have exposed themselves.
Case closed.
Politicians are looking for advantage...From local to international policy making, they are looking for advantage...That is why all governments in this world including the U.S. are corrupt...Personal or political advantages is all that matters to politicians...they could careless about anything or anyone else...Politicians will use all means at there disposal to give them the advantage...People need to recognize this...
Abolish the I.R.S. website. Vote.
http://www.abolishirsnow.com/?c=2dbf10ad949b94e493c7dec2879fa4ba
So many things are wrong about this chart that it is hard to know where to start. Rather than grind my axe, let me say this.
It's clear this was targeting groups for their politics. Regardless of where we stand on the polotics themselves, we should all be against any massive, dangerous federal agency selecting its victims on this basis. Or, actually, selecting victims at all. This is the worst type of statism.
It is not the responsibility of the IRS to deny, question, hold-up, or disapprove any applications from any group...There responsibility is to insure the forms are filled out and get a signature "under penalty of purjury"...after that, they have a mechanism for audits and prosecutions which is there responsibility.....All groups should be rubber stamped approved...then if the need arises audited to insure compliance...
You haven't committed any crime or any wrong doing because you submitted an application..That is why it is easy to state the politicians or the IRS is corrupted..I suggest it is both...
In 2009, out of NOWHERE, there was a fiscal conservative backlash against ALL of the bailouts and stimulus spending by BOTH Republicans and Democrats. This is where the Tea Party started. As these small groups organized they applied for tax exempt status to organize rallies and such. The IRS then began it's targetting of these new groups. This was BEFORE Citizens United.
While these silly charts try to tie the various Tea Party groups to citizens united, it is in fact USELESS to lump in the handfull of REPUBLICAN machine money, like Rove's group, to these Tea Party groups that have TINY budgets.
I have no doubt that BOTH the Democrats AND the Republicans would like to TERMINATE the Tea Party and that this mutual desire to maintain their own power, the status quo, is why this absurd transgression by the IRS was IGNORED for YEARS!
I can still remember this movement when it started as well, and long before the Republican Party completely co-opted (and neutered) them. So fucking sad to see a genunine show of intelligence by a sizable amount of the population just to watch them become deceived yet again and stuffed back down into insignificance. Imagine the world we would live in now if the real Tea Party activists (pre Repub infestation) and the Occupy Wall Street folks got together (their principles being the same).