Login HereTop officials at the Internal Revenue Service are pushing agents to prematurely close audits of big companies with agreements to have them pay only a fraction of the additional taxes that could be collected, according to dozens of I.R.S. employees who say that the policy is costing the government billions of dollars a year.
“It’s catch and release,” said Douglas R. Johnson, an I.R.S. auditor in Colorado for three decades who said he grew so frustrated at how large corporations were allowed to pay far less than what he thought they owed that he transferred to the agency’s small-business division.
[...]
The New York Times interviewed roughly fifty auditors nationwide and only two would go on record by name, fearing retribution. Supervisors get paid bonuses, get promotions and other benefits for meeting deadlines. It is easy to imagine corporations offering up sacrificial lamb tax-shelters in pre-negotiated deals masking other income tax evasion tactics.
Agents are afraid to lodge official complaints for fear of bad performance reviews, but resent not being allowed to do their jobs. In a time where our country is running massive deficits with major foreign entanglements it is outrageous that this sort of wink-and-nod policy is in place at the Internal Revenue Service.
[...]
Mr. Lynch, the auditor who retired in California, and many others complained that the effect of the policy was to allow the Bush administration to achieve administratively a further easing of the corporate income tax burden far beyond what Congress has approved legislatively.
According to Melanie Fox, the only current auditor besides Mr. Johnson who agreed to be quoted by name, a large number of the most experienced corporate auditors plan to retire as quickly as they can because they feel their efforts are not respected.
“A lot of audit experience is about to walk out the door,” Ms. Fox said. “And then what will happen?”
Mission accomplished: F.U.B.A.R.
Billions of dollars outright stolen from the American taxpayer by the Bush crime family and their sponsors. Add this to the list of things to keep our eyes on.
Oilfieldguy blogs at http://kittenstomper.blogspot.com/
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OFG! and…
F I T Z ! ! !
I was at that show! Woo Hoo!
(Saw the Who two daze earlier.)
:~}
Oilfieldguy! Someone mentioned you earlier today, thought you’d like to know you were missed.
Congrats, neokneme, on the “zed.”
Ann in AZ @ 2
My ex husband-in-law missed me too, but he was a lousy shot!
OT but the video keeps stalling for me. Anyone else having this problem?
Ever been audited? I got it back in 79. Before PC’s. Before Quicken. We had written our own personal accounting system using ms-basic on a Z80 development system. They looked at my print-out, organized by catagory and said “We’ve never seen this before…”
Ahh, memories…
Zed-80 daze… Thanks Ann!
Today’s Krugman might seem to be off-topic, since the main subject is really the War, but it ain’t, really.
There’s a type of looting called a control fraud that I first learned about from an article by James Galbraith. We might want to keep it in mind— but caution: its implications are only for those with strong stomachs.
Isn’t it always about the money?
“The dissolution of the Corporate Model is the sine qua non of Democracy.” Robert Newman - History of Oil
Great summary post OFG. I’m finishing the article now.
OFG said “Add this to the list of things to keep our eyes on.”
I’m going to need trifocals soon.
This ooooold news. One of my oldest girlfriends has worked for the IRS as a field audit agent for 30 years and she was telling me this 25 years ago.
That being said there is no reason this shouldn’t be stopped.
Like right now.
Gee, what a fucking surprise. The Gambino Republican bust-out continues.
ccmask @ 10
Trifocals don’t help.
Whisky helps marginally. ;)
A. Citizen @ 10
Seems like it may be getting worse.
OFG– so nice to read your posts! Kudos.
OT and sorry– Crawford and Buchanan predict a strike on Iran by the end of the year. They were all yucking it up on Joey Scarborough.
I think I’ll go throw up, now.
BRB.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/p.....-poll1.htm
New Gallup Poll out.
30% support Clusterfuck’s plan for Iraq
34% support clusterfuck (JAR)- down three points since before he made his speech..
If Clusterfuck would just keep his fuckin MOUTH shut- he might do a little better!
Who knows what congressional committee chairman to forward this story to?
PLEASE tell me it’s not Joementum…
Very brave of you and digby, ofg, to blog about the IRS political appointees’ kowtowing to corporations on the eve of the Libby trial, while the Vice President peeks in our bank accounts, listens to our phone calls and reads our mail (e- and not), and claims that the War Powers Act is probably unconstitutional — while his “boss” sends volunteer American servicepeople on their third and fourth rotation to fight a war Americans are done with and Iraqis never asked for.
Where are the Democrats? Make the madness stop, please, Democrats!
…oh, and:
Troops
Home
NOW
Oilfieldguy @
14
Precisely. This is how something epoch-making has snuck up on even so many of the cynical. At first, it looks like just more of the same, but in fact I think this bunch is knowingly going for the limit.
Somebody is getting paid off for all those big bucks the big corporations are saving on the tax audits. Who?
I think it’s Greenwald today who says the whole Bush/Cheney goal is power - for them. And that as their hold weakens (according to the polls) they’re more likely to do something that we’ll all regret for however long we live afterward.
In other words, we have to do smthing, but we have to do it in a way that won’t set them off, because they’re seriously unstable, like nitroglycerin.
Remember a few years ago when shrubco’s IRS announced that they would increase audits of working and middle Ameriacns and decrease audits of the very rich, because their studies showed that auditing people who can’t fight back would yield higher returns?
Ah, the beauty of life in a kleptocracy..
TSF,
I couldn’t tell if you were throwing rocks at me or not. My taxes come right out of my check. I file to recover my losses, it’s pretty cut and dried. Total waste of time to audit my ass. About the only deductions I claim are nights out of town (verified by logbook) and cell phone bills.
rwcole @ 16
Alternatively, have him hit the road like the Social-Security-palooza — he’ll hit 15 next week and we’ll see the GOP begging Pelosi to re-set the table.
I knew the USAToday poll would take a big hit after that speech; The Base did not like W’s apologizing one bit.
Oilfieldguy @ 23
Not rocks at all! I think you are brave! PS I am, however, not getting the phrase “ex-husband-in-law?” Can you ’splain that one to me please?
neurophius @ 19
IRS supervisors get cash bonuses, promotions and other benefits for adhering to “light touch” audit deadlines.
Tripping over dollars to pick up pennies.
A beautiful graph:
http://www.pollkatz.homestead......age001.gif
It’s a week old, but really cool, huh? It’s truly a trendline to inspire envy…
TeddySanFran @ 24
RevDeb, i’m jonesing for a croissant now. Why didn’t i eat more when you urged me to?
OFG, renaissance man.
Great posts. Lots of sunshine on the reverse-robin hood taxation strategy needed.
Sax player has a helluva mullet. Man can toot that horn.
Jane Hamsher on 4/23/6
My ex-wife’s ex-husband. I dunno what else to call him, besides a lousy shot. Course all he coulda hit was assholes or elbows cause I was fetching me some yonder!
On a day when an Under Secretary of Defense calls out lawfirms by name on the radio, so that their CEO clients know representation is being provided to Gitmo “terrorists” by these firms, nothing else can surprise me from this cabal. They are moving quickly: they need to act and their actions will be those of the cornered and corrupt.
Fetching yonder is what I want Bush/Cheney to do!
Oilfieldguy @ 4
Funny you should mention that! I used to call my ex-husband’s wife my wife-in-law.
Stimson actually did more than that. He actually suggested openly that these firms, which include the country’s leading corporate law firms, need to be investigated for accepting funding for their terrorist defense work, from unnamed suspicious sources.. as if Simpson Thacher is getting paid by the Iranians to defend Gitmo torturees. ‘course snowjob disowned Stimson’s comments, but the intent is unmistakable: doing your job and upholding the law is now treason.
TeddySanFran @ 32
TeddySanFran @ 33
Bushco is fond ‘o retching. that is, our retching, induced by them.
TeddySanFran @ 31
I saw that too. The sad thing is, he probably feels like he is a real patriot. He’s obviously angling for a future as a “Foxspert”.
The other side of this scam (what else can one call it?) is the sloughing off of collection efforts to private firms.
Read recently that with privatized collection, the IRS expected to recover about $1.5 billion over the next several years. With IRS collections done internally, that recovered amount would be about $87 billion over the same period (can’t remember if it was five or ten years).
The implication was that the collection agencies would go after the easy money (the poorer schmos who wouldn’t or couldn’t fight back) and leave alone the wealthy people who could bring lots of legal resources to bear.
What has it taken, 3 plus years to get Libby in court? I wish we could fast-track the BushCo trials.
montag,
I did not know the IRS was privatizing collections.
Isn’t there a nice court (complete with a $300 million spanking new courthouse) in gitmo that does things pretty quicky?
Oilfieldguy @ 39
Got a question about this new, apparently legal method of tax-evasion. How long has this been going on? Is it just this administration, or have several administrations participated in this fraudulent venture? Any kickbacks involved? I don’t suppose there’s any chance that they do the same for small businesses. Never mind, I already know the answer.
They are outsourcing the IRS?
I went on a date Friday night with my future ex-husband. I think.
Yep. Targeting debts under $10,000… part of what I mentioned before:– the IRS was instructed by shrubco to use private collection agencies to target working and middle class tax debtors, while effectively decreasing the number of in house auditors (who chase after the bigger numbers). ‘course there’s probably an elite super-secret special branch that targets wealthy Dems…
Oilfieldguy @ 40
Coupled with the dismissal of unknown numbers of USAttorneys nationally, this misuse of the IRS is really scary. Dick Cheney worked previously in an Administration that misused the IRS. Just sayin’
Gotta love that Unitary Executive.
http://www.blogsource.org/2005.....rcing.html
ccmask @ 44
well, don’t leave us hanging…there are several scenarios to fit that.
ccmask @ 44
??? ccmask- you deserve someone wonderful and supportive. Was it a bummer or was it more than okay? I just can’t tell from your comment. My advice- before you do anything precipitous, make sure you travel together to some challenging place.
rwcole @ 16
Well then I vote to keep him talking…non-stop, forever! How low can he go?!! *g*
Oilfieldguy @ 40
They are trying, but I think the proposal is running into trouble, in part because the union workers in the Treasury Dept. are screaming about it.
forgot to add, from another link - yeah, I know, knock ya over with a feather
http://www.argmax.com/mt_blog/archive/000665.php
Actually, I was just kidding about the date. But I know he’s out there somewhere. :))
ccmask @ 53
Well, finding your future ex-husband should be pretty easy! Lotsa candidates, I’m sure! (as long as that is your mission). OTOH….
Nothing on the horizon for me either, ccmask, but then again, I have not made myself available.
TeddySanFran @
32
A title to gruesome to ignore:
deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs
Since we’re on the general topic of shrubco’s financial policies, I thought I’d post a link to my favorite expose (from July 2005) on financial malfeasance and shrubco:– Paul Bremer’s still totally unresolved theft of $8.8 billion. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq.....83,00.html
A. Citizen @ 11
How true - both points. I’ve been audited six times since 1977. The first three were when I was a commercial fisherman. They get audited a lot, but I got to sleep with the second auditor, who also awarded me hundreds of dollars. According to an auditor I met after my third audit - who penalized me over 12K - I was screwed the third time as well.
They left me alone for over twenty years. Then I wrote music about Rachel Corrie, and I now get audited every year, even though I’ve gotten money back each time. Go figure?
So, I’m five for six, and got laid once and screwed once. What an agency, eh?
OFG: I was really just joking…you know, my future ex-husband that I haven’t met. I never make myself available either. I live with my 19 year old son who goes to college and I actually like being alone most of the time. I live in a very small town and the streets shut down by 9:00. As long as I have an internet connection and my bills paid, I’m a happy camper.
ET - lmao IRS imbedded.
And, it was about a year ago that a British NGO completed a study that found it likely that almost $9 trillion is hidden in secret off-shore accounts which are not required by local law to open their books–Isle of Man, Canary Islands, Cayman Islands, Andorra–and the taxes due on that money is about $450 billion, about half of that due the US….
The system is gamed to protect the very wealthy and the ultra-wealthy. David Cay Johnston’s Perfectly Legal is full of examples.
TeddySanFran @
46
The IRS is where Valerie’s identity (and Brewster-J) was most vulnerable. I think it was a special action of sorts that identified her contribution, or attributed it to her. That possible connection always did make me wonder.
Ann in AZ @ 50
Blub at 35 says:
Kinda hard to disown someone’s comments when they’re done in tandem. This was a choreographed dance…look it up!
If you don’t send in the envelope with the barcode scan on it, you don’t get audited, I heard. They already determine who will get audited and if you send it in a plain envelope, you’re good to go. This from a customer about 10 years ago.
I had heard of a two-story building, in the Cayman Islands I think, that is the address for over two hundred corporations. Just sort of a front, really. I did a bit of googling but didn’t find anything on it. I need help with my research skills.
Hopefully, I can meet up with TRex at YKos and he can give me some pointers. He’s pretty good.
Is this for real?
From AP:
“Arab officials said they now will propose a broad bargain to Rice, dubbed “Iraq for Land.”"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....ea/rice_29
And the guy who invented the barcode, died a poor soul.
I like this line Blub:
She (Condi)reflected an understanding of the bigger picture of what is going on in the region, and the need to put this thing behind us, the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
Cheney through his ventriliquist’s dummy, Georgie, has totally trashed the American System for the glory and profit of Corporatism, Inc. My theory is that Benito Mussolini is Dead-Eye’s role model
Clusterfuck’s got ta get Malaki to agree to kill shiites as well as sunnis..
Clusterfuck himself is willing to kill Iraqi’s without regard to race, creed, or national origin.. Clusterfuck’s an equal opportunity killer- but he doesn’t trust Malaki to kill enough of just the right sort of Iraqis..
Clusterfuck read the game rules and they said that if you kill 20 million Iraqis of ANY flavor- you WIN!
In Malaki’s defense, Clusterfuck wants him to kill all his own aunties and grandpops..that’s tough to do- no matter HOW much ya love yer country. Clusterfuck thinks that he’s just bein a sentimental boob!
Wonder if the Iraqis would be more peaceful if they learned to surf? That’s SURF- NOT SURGE- Clusterfuck!
Jay @ 70
Don’t think this is all Cheney. Bush grew up among the privileged, and they think a lot differently than the rest of us about privilege and entitlement.
Remember the dismay shown by the instructor of Bush’s beginning-year graduate economic history course about what Bush had to say (the poor were lazy, that the SEC was anti-capitalism, etc.).
Remember that Bush grew up in a household with someone (his grandfather) who had had about half of his fortune seized by the government for trading with the enemy (didn’t make much sense, but the government gave him some of it back after WWII).
It’s Bush’s idea to destroy Social Security from within, because it’s part of that same New Deal that forced his family to give up some of their wealth.
There’s a real psychopathology at work here, and it’s not Cheney’s.
Remember “it’s great to be back among the haves… and the have-mores, my base?”
If Ol Al Sadr were out there hangin ten- it would be hard to turn around and kill Iraqis- or so it seems to me.
I’m not anti-corporation or anti-profit. But our economic system is just as much an infrastructure as are our bridges and highways, in fact it is the former that finances the latter.
But this gaming the system and tweaking the rules and shady tax shelters are, in my opinion, un-American.
Those who shreik and harp about dissent by vocal opposition and call such people treasonous in the wingnut-welfare system of the mighty rightwing wurlitzer, are financed by the very corporations that use this three-card-monte tax dance to evade their support for this country.
It’s really sad.
Oilfieldguy @ 76
First time in history that taxes were reduced in “wartime.” That says everything necessary to prove your point….
rwcole @ 75
He’s hanged three so far…
Hehe. The same drunken thugs who are presently stumbling blindly through current affairs are gonna singlehandly “put behind us” the world’s most pervasive geopolitical conflict, which has stumped jut about everybody for the last 4,000 years. Yep. My money’s definitely on Condi and shrubco. Where can I place a bet?
ccmask @ 69
Hate ta say it- but that Al Sadr is ONE UGLY GUY- he’s uglier than CHENEY..
Put yerself in HIS place- YOU’D be mean TOO!
I totally agree with you Montag, that the Bushes are privileged whores. I simply believe that Junior is so coke and booze addled that Cheney must be a key player in the “privatization” of America.
Condi’s JUST the ONE ta send ta patch up a bad scrap- she fixes things between Laura and Clusterfuck constantly..
Eureka Springs, AR @
56
A-Φ that:
montag @ 74
Strangely enough, I agree. Big Dick is bad, but Bushie is worse.
TeddySanFran @ 32
My antennae, while wounded, are indeed up and awaiting the next egregious act.
There may be something very scary coming in the next few months. If we can sense it coming, maybe we can help people. I will try.
OT new post at egregiousBlog: the shrinking room. Thanks for all love and support for me as I venture off to Russia for trip # 29.
Boy, I wished that “edit comment” worked for me..sorry for the spelling of privileged.
And also the first time, I believe, in contemporary economic history, that a US government did not use tax spoils of a time of economic expansion and growing corporate profits to reduce the deficit in preparing for lean times and war times to come. Instead, we had to use the surplus to buy someone’s daughter a private vanity jet… or a few thousand vanity jets.
montag @ 77
It’s been building, egregious. There’s no doubt about that. It’s just a question of when and whether we can head it off or do real damage control. I’d prefer to do the former, rather than the latter. I do enough of the latter at work.
Condi at the peacetable- poring over the roadmap..
Look YOU- yer sposed ta be on yer way ta Jerusalem- and YOU Yer sposed ta be DEAD!
Yer dirty and ya SMELL! Why are ya wearin that stupid towel on yer head anyway- and YOU- YOU should be sellin cameras in downtown Manhattan! Shit I hate this God foresaken place- My husband says for you ta just sign this fuckin thing so I can go home!
montag,
I think it’s even more than that. Our economic system has allowed many to prosper, and others, not so much.
To subvert the system by the prosperous, that allowed them to become prosperous, while calling the government tax collectors for the welfare state, is wrong.
But corporate welfare is keeping pace with public welfare. Back in the ’50s the tax burden was about split 50/50 between businesses and individuals. The tax burden has dramatically increased to individuals since then to roughly 85%
Sure our population has grown, but the cheat ratio is off the charts for corporations.
Jay @ 86
Especially after the lectures earlier today about how it was properly spelled, huh? :)
Friday, October 6, 2006
Sheriff Reichert’s supervision questioned in bizarre arson–By LEWIS KAMB
Dave Reichert knew for weeks in 1996 that a sergeant under his command was meddling in a felony arson investigation, but kept him on the job despite a policy that would have allowed Reichert to remove him, according to interviews and court documents.
It was a bizarre case. The sergeant, Matt Bachmeier, had burned down his own Renton home to collect insurance, then a month later implicated an innocent man before killing him.
Reichert, now a Republican congressman in a heated re-election campaign, issued a prepared statement about the matter Thursday night to the P-I. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....web06.html
Yet, on November 2, 2006:
AP) A school bus driver fired after she allegedly made an obscene gesture at President Bush has filed a union grievance in an attempt to get her job back.
The 43-year-old driver, whose name was not released, was driving middle school children back to school after a zoo visit on June 16 when the president and Republican Rep. Dave Reichert (me-yikes!!) drove slowly by in a motorcade.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories.....6361.shtml
rwcole @ 89
Husband? You’re referring to shrub?
egregious:
“There may be something very scary coming in the next few months. If we can sense it coming, maybe we can help people. I will try.”
I think it’s called “U.S. attacks Iran.”
montag @ 91
I guessed I missed that, Montag.
rwcole @ 82
Puts herself right in the middle of things, does she?
Blub-
Yeah that’s what she called him once in a monumental slip of the tongue.
“The 2007 War Profiteer Tax” I like the sound of that..
Jay @
86
fixed, refresh
Oilfieldguy @ 90
Oh, believe me, I’m not disagreeing.
The tax ratio wasn’t quite that severe (if you’re limiting your argument to corporations, and not all business). In the `50s, corps paid 34-35% of all federal tax revenues; by the late `70s that figure was down to 24%; by the early `90s, it was 13%. A couple of years ago, it was down to 8%, and this past year (figures aren’t all in yet), it’s expected be less–maybe as low as 5-6% of revenues. Add in the subsidies and grants lately being ladled out by Congress and it’s entirely possible that corporate revenues may go net negative in the very near future–corporations may be getting more tax dollars than they’re required to pay.
Believe me, I ain’t arguing with ya. :)
Folks, there is a ton of misinformation out there about my former employer (the IRS, that is), and David Cay Johnston isn’t helping any.
My take as a former IRS litigator (Melanie Fox, one of the IRS agents quoted by name in Johnston’s article, is a former client of mine):
As with any long and complex statute, there are a large number of provisions of the Internal Revenue Code whose proper interpretation is … umm … uncertain. Large corporate taxpayers and their advisors will, of course, tend to interpret such provisions in ways that allow taxpayers to report less income rather than more, to the extent that such legal advice can be given consistent with the lawyer giving the advice’s ethical obligations. IRS field exam people, unsurprisingly, will do the opposite.
Such disputes get settled based on each side’s assessment of the hazards of litigation. That’s the only way the system can possibly work.
The non-value-laden term for the process that Johnston misdescribes in his article in order to sensationalize it is a “currency initiative.” Taxpayers have a legitimate interest in tax audits not taking forever. Historically, some large corporate audits dragged on for decades. The poster child for this is an audit involving Hyatt hotels; the Tax Court case that finally resolved the dispute, H Group Holdings, Inc. v. Commissioner, was decided in 1999. The earliest tax year covered by the Court’s decision was 1976. That’s right, 23 years to get an answer. I think most reasonable people will agree that that’s ridiculous.
AFAIK, there are no IRS agents or managers being paid off to resolve audits. It has happened in the past, but the last guy who got caught (about 15 years ago) drew a 25-year-sentence, and got tossed into a Level 5 prison full of violent criminals. I’m here to tell you that there isn’t a single IRS employee, at any level, who doesn’t think about that guy for at least a few seconds a day, and say to himself or herself, “not me.”
Until the IRS gets funded at a level that allows it to not have to prioritize its enforcement efforts, it will do the best it can with too few people, not enough training, and obsolete technology. If y’all want that to change, write Charlie Rangel and tell him you’re willing to pay for it.
SWAG SWAGGER SWAGGIEST
Bush on 60 Minutes:
He also strongly rejected that milk comes from cows.
And that chocolate milk comes from black cows.
But donuts come from trees grown by planting cheerios.
rwcole @
89
Best thought bubble, evah, rw!!
These jokers can only speak in Soundbites..what we used to call cliches.
Donuts are gooper cheerios- they just have more ta eat!
ccmask @ 102
good one, gooder one, goodest one?
montag @ 100