TAX POLITIX
The Politics of Taxes
Losing Out on A Pulitzer Prize: Ignoring the Ongoing IRS Scandal
The latest revelations in the never-ending IRS Scandal are pretty headline-worthy, but hardly a pip is being heard from the MSM, again. First, Judicial Watch has revealed, and the Department of Justice has confirmed, that the missing emails of Lois Lerner do indeed exist; second, that the content of one of Lois Lerner's Blackberrys was destroyed after the Congressional investigation began in 2012. The entire scandal has continuously had the makings of headline news: targeting citizens,...
New TIGTA Report Shows Obamacare Revenue Lagging, IRS Snagging
According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Admininstration (TIGTA), the 2.3% medical device excise tax enacted to help pay for Obamacare is not meeting targets. The tax went into affect January 1, 2013. The TIGTA report analyzed the returns for the first two quarters (6 months) of 2013, and found that the "excise tax revenue being reported are lower than estimated" for a total of $913.4 million. The IRS expected to have received "excise tax revenue of $1.2 billion for this same...
Tax on Sugar? This is not 1764
On April 5, 1764, Parliament passed something called "The Sugar Act", which, interestingly, had another name: "The American Revenue Act". It was a modification of the 1733 Molasses Act, and it also affected other goods, such as wine and coffee. The Preamble to this Act states: "it is expedient that new provisions and regulations should be established for improving the revenue of this Kingdom ... and ... it is just and necessary that a revenue should be raised ... for defraying the expenses of...
Savings, Working, and Retirement
A study was released today that showed more than a third of Americans, (36%)a have saved nothing for retirement. That got me thinking about the idea of retirement and the state of retiring in this country. Everyone thinks they can retire at age 65. It’s an American ideal born in the last century with the rise of unions, the defined benefit plan, and generous pension systems. In reality, especially due to advances in health, medicine, and nutrition, many people have great capability to continue...
The Latest Business Attack on MLPs is Just as Flimsy as the Inversion Crusade
Earlier this week, the business world was chattering about the news that Kinder Morgan, pioneer of the Master Limited Partnership (MLP) business model, was surrendering the MLP structure in favor of a more traditional corporation. This happened last Sunday. While many questioned what this meant for the MLP model in general, the more pressing questions began to emerge when, the following day, the Treasury Department came out with a statement regarding MLPs: “We at the Treasury are looking into...
Chuck Todd to Take Over Helm at Meet the Press?
At the end of June, I penned a piece about Chuck Todd with the opening salvo, "You can’t have anyone that stupid be in charge at NBC." Now I hear that Chuck Todd is planning on taking over David Gregory's spot on Meet the Press. That is an utter trainwreck. Chuck Todd is often uninformed on the topics he is tasked with discussing. Otherwise, he must be disingenously preying on low-information viewers to not know information in the first place. David Gregory was not that great in his role of...
Congressional Standing to Sue the President
Lately there have been recent discussion about whether or not Congress can sue the President. We have had several occurrences, in fact, where the President has violated the Constitution by overreaching his authority with regard to Congress. In these instances, Congress should have the standing to sue the President. When Congress has acted in its authority as the Legislative branch, that institution as a whole has been compromised when the President, acting as the Executive branch, has ignored...
More Inspector General Transparency: Feds Filter Final Report
As if the recent letter from the Inspectors General to Congress wasn't enough, there's a new story about apparent interference from the Feds into an Inspector General report. The Washington Post reports today about an incident in which an Inspector General for the Commerce department received a "filtered" version that watered down telework abuse incidents in the U.S. Patent Office. The original report, seen here described "'fundamental issues' with the business model of the patent office", and...
Government Inspectors General Describe Atmosphere of Restricted Access
Inspectors General (yes, that's the plural) are considered watchdogs for the government. Their jobs primarily focus on "uncovering waste, fraud, and mismanagement", which is an important function to keep government programs and agencies in check. A serious breach of trust is evident, therefore, when 47 of 73 Inspectors General pen a letter to Congress describing "serious limitations on access to records." That's 64% of the total watchdogs who express such concerns. You can read the letter...
Audit Reveals Government-Run Transparency Site Is Inaccurate and Inconsistent
USAToday gave a sobering report this week which reaffirmed the inability of our government to be both accurate and transparent. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) audited spending data from 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, by comparing government agency records with those found on USASpending.gov. The GAO reported that only 2-7% of the numbers found on the website is 'fully consistent with agencies' records." and that at least "$619 billion from 302 federal...
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