Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The IRS Scandal

8 Comments

The real one, not the ones being promulgated by leftist journalists ignorant of the law:

The real scandal is that all these complicated tax rules exist. If we would just eliminate the corporate income tax, then people could organize groups, or not, just as they please. And the IRS would not be in the position of deciding what counts as excessive political activity.

Yes. The corporate income tax is an abomination, on many levels, and one of the causes of slowed economic growth.

8 thoughts on “The IRS Scandal”

  1. A perfectly flat tax would solve even more of these issues. So would elimination of personal income tax.

    Wasn’t Joe the Plumber the first one to feel the lash of the Chicago Thug’s IRS whip?

  2. That this could be done at all is the argument for limited government. Ignoring Gerribs, that think Limited means none; the government could still collect plenty of taxes with methods that don’t lend themselves to this kind of abuse. Abolishing the corporate income tax, eliminating deductions, instituting a flat tax, or even a consumption tax rather than income tax (though that would need an Amendment).

    Unfortunately, if you think there is already too much abuse within the IRS and decided to organize against it, then you’ll be subject to government scrutiny.

    1. We got into this situation in the first place because of the 16th amendment.

      The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

      Our founders taxed the states based on census. It was up to the states to collect taxes and people could leave the state if it became too onerous.

      This one change made us all slaves.

  3. The prime directive of Ed Deming’s revolution was the reduction of waste – in land/space, labor, capital goods, and time. Reduce costs associated with that which does not create value. The corporate income tax undermines that mission, by creating a layer of administration solely dedicated to tax compliance. This hurts smaller companies more than it hurts big companies, naturally.

    (Semi-random thought: would LIFO even exist without the IRS?)

    1. The complex and corrupt tax code is very expensive across all parts of the economy. Several years ago, the government admitted that Americans spend over 5 billion labor hours per year complying with the tax code. That’s roughly the full time labor of 2.4 million people. I don’t know what the current statistic is but it isn’t unreasonable to expect the numbers are higher now.

  4. If anyone thinks political abuses by the IRS is a new or rare thing, they’re fooling themselves. The IRS has been the American Gestapo almost from the beginning.

    The agency also has a long history of seeking to intimidate congressional critics: In 1925, Internal Revenue Commissioner David Blair personally delivered a demand for $10 million in back taxes to Michigan’s Republican Sen. James Couzens—who had launched an investigation of the Bureau of Internal Revenue—as he stepped out of the Senate chamber. More recently, after Sen. Joe Montoya of New Mexico announced plans in 1972 to hold hearings on IRS abuses, the agency added his name to a list of tax protesters who were capable of violence against IRS agents.

    I’ve read that J. Edgar Hoover stayed on so long as head of the FBI because he had so much dirt on politicians and wasn’t afraid to use it to get his way. He legacy has been tarnished as a result. The IRS has never stopped doing what Hoover did back in the day. And we’re supposed to trust them to manage ObamaCare impartially. Yeah. Right.

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