IRS
December 31, 2022 — Scott Johnson
Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee released six years of former President Trump’s tax returns yesterday. Politico has posted them here. When the New York Times followed up with an emailed notice that it had published “Key Takeaways From Trump’s Tax Returns” with a “running list of insights” by three reporters, I took a look at their findings. Carter Page was under intrusive federal surveillance by the national
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December 1, 2022 — John Hinderaker
The Daily Signal reports on a production of correspondence between Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, one of the most vicious members of the Democratic Party, and the IRS: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., called for revoking a tax exemption for a conservative group for not masking up and socially distancing during the pandemic, insisted on a slew of investigations of other conservative groups, and pressed for the Internal Revenue Service to expand its
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August 7, 2022 — John Hinderaker
Nearly half of the Democrats’ Inflation Promotion Act is devoted to increasing the budget of the IRS. Think about that: when has more IRS ever been popular? Never. So what are the Democrats up to? Monica Showalter writes: The other half [of the Inflation Promotion Act], some $300 billion, will be dedicated to IRS enforcement, surveillance upgrades, and audits against small businesses, who have now been re-labeled “the rich.” $300
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October 15, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Readers have undoubtedly heard something of the Biden administration/Treasury Department proposal to expand the scope of bank reporting requirements on customer accounts. The proposal has elicited reactions ranging from indignation to rebellion, but what is it exactly? The New York Times had a good story earlier this week, but the story is a little short on the substance of the proposal (“the administration wants banks to give the Internal Revenue
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October 5, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Earlier today, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin defended the Biden administration’s proposal to require banks to report inflow and outflow information on all accounts with more than $600 or more than $600 in transactions–in other words, virtually all bank accounts: During an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Tuesday, Yellen was pressed on whether the IRS has the “wherewithal” to collect more information about taxpayers and bank accounts including cash flows,
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June 26, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Any ginormous spending bill that comes under “bipartisan” auspices should be suspect from the git-go. This Wall Street Journal editorial explores one goody that is to be stuffed into the trillion-dollar box: The bipartisan Senate infrastructure deal still hasn’t been written into legislative language, but we already know that its no-tax-increase pledge is a fudge. The deal is counting on $100 billion in new revenue by supersizing the Internal Revenue
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June 21, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Not everyone associated with the Black Lives Matter movement is a crook, but a lot of them are. We know that Patrisse Khan-Cullors, one of BLM’s founders, has bought more than $3 million worth of luxury real estate in recent months. Being a BLM activist is a lucrative gig, with American corporations throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at the various BLM entities. God only knows what they do with
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June 19, 2021 — John Hinderaker
No sooner have the Democrats retaken the White House than the IRS again feels free to use its power to advance partisan interests. This actually happened in May, but it is just now hitting the news: the IRS denied 501(c)(3) nonprofit status to an organization called Christians Engaged. The IRS explained that Christian doctrines are Republican: You also educate believers on issues that are central to their belief in the
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June 8, 2021 — Steven Hayward
One of the many things the Biden Administration wants to do is increase the enforcement budget of the IRS, so it can hound tens or hundreds of thousands more taxpayers every year in their rapacious desire to punish the prosperous. (Remember: According to the new liberal dogma of “Modern Monetary Theory,” we can borrow and spend all we want without consequence, so there is no reason to raise any tax
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July 1, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Thanks to the findings in the Minnesota campaign finance board investigation of her 2016 run for the state legislature, we know that Ilhan Omar filed illegal joint tax returns in 2014 and 2015 with a man to whom she wasn’t married — while she was married to another man. This is something of a bombshell, graphically illustrating Omar’s treatment of her marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi as a sham.
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August 26, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Under the Constitution, the President exercises all executive authority. But we do not live under the government that is described in the Constitution. We live in a society that is dominated by the Fourth Branch of government, the unelected bureaucracy that is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. And the Fourth Branch is increasingly declaring its independence from the elected officials to whom it ostensibly reports–that is to say, from the
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February 2, 2018 — Scott Johnson
If there was a federal agency that Barack Obama did not corrupt, it must be because it was corrupt when he took over in 2009. The corruption of the IRS is a case in point. Its criminal misconduct perfectly represents what Obama wrought in the agencies that he charged with dictating the way we live. Consider the case of Lori Lowenthal Marcus and Z Street. Z Street is Lori’s pro-Israel
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November 21, 2017 — Scott Johnson
John Koskinen’s term as IRS Commissioner ended earlier this month. The New York Times asserted that Koskinen “left on his own terms.” I’m afraid the Times got that right. In the course of his celebratory interview with the Times and another interview with Politico, however, Koskinen may have violated section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code by acknowledging President Trump’s tax returns. I don’t make much of that, but the
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September 17, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Paul Mirengoff covered the Department of Justice’s September 8 reiteration of its decision not to prosecute Lois Lerner. Paul noted the absence of a rejoinder to the stated conclusion that the department lacked sufficient evidence to bring a case against Lerner. I hate cliches, but the more things change… John Koskinen remains Commissioner of the IRS. Only last month Kim Strassel noted that the IRS is still toying with conservative
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September 8, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
The Trump Justice Department has decided not to prosecute Lois Lerner for her leading role in the IRS targeting scandal. The Obama Justice Department made that call in 2015, but House Republicans asked the Trump administration to take a fresh look. Having done so, the Justice Department today notified members of Congress that it will not alter the Obama administration’s decision. In a letter to Kevin Brady, chairman of the
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August 22, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The IRS was at the center of the deepest scandals of the Obama administration. Bill Henck gave us a look from his perspective inside the IRS Office of the Chief Counsel, where he has worked as an attorney for 30 years. In 2014 we posted Bill’s personal account of a retaliatory audit conducted by the IRS against him in “Inside the IRS.” We followed up with subsequent posts by Bill
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August 19, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Among the imponderables staring us in the face in year 1 of the Trump administration is John Koskinen. Why does this man remain Commissioner of the IRS? Speaking of Obama holdovers, Koskinen is a beaut. I should have thought he was a prime candidate for sacking on day 1, though I don’t recall President Trump ever mentioning the scandals that have disgraced the IRS on the campaign trail. Koskinen has
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