The Chairman’s Report July 8, 2022

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  • Source: FAIRtax
  • 07/08/2022

Millions of Destroyed Tax Forms Deal Reviled IRS Fresh Black Eye -

This is the title of an article that appeared in Bloomberg Tax on May 13, 2022.  The article points out:
 
  • In March of 2021, the IRS shredded 30 million paper-filed information returns as a solution to the pandemic-related backlog.
  • The IRS explained the documents were destroyed because their computer systems could not process them and needed to free up computer space for new documents for the 2021 tax filing system.
  • Adam Markowitz, vice president of Howard L. Markowitz PA CPA, said the destruction of the tax forms won’t end up on most taxpayers’ radars, but there could be some documents that were destroyed that were very important for certain taxpayers.“The general public already hates the IRS,” he said. “This certainly isn’t going to help.”
  • Grover Norquist, president of the conservative advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, said a commonality between the destroyed forms and past IRS controversies is they came to light because they were discovered by outside entities.“They’re killing their credibility,” he said. “‘Trust us’ doesn’t work when you have lied through omission.”  Failing to disclose the destruction of the tax forms is “not the way to ask for a raise,” Norquist added.
  • Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), chair of the House Ways and Means subcommittee charged with oversight of the IRS, said he wanted IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig gone.“I’m not going to recognize him as the director because he’s not acting like one. What are you going to do? After the problem jump up and down and say, ‘We need $20 billion’?” Pascrell told Bloomberg Tax. “We already put money in there. I don’t know how they’re spending it.”

MAY 17, 2022 GAO REPORT


This article is from Accountingtoday.com and it stated:
 
  • In recent years, the IRS audited taxpayers with incomes below $25,000 and those with incomes of $500,000 or more at higher-than-average rates. However, audit rates have dropped for all income levels — with audit rates falling the most for taxpayers with incomes of $200,000 or more.
  • IRS officials blamed the decline in audit rates on staffing decreases and the fact that it takes more staff time and expertise to handle complex higher-income audits. According to IRS officials, those types of audits are usually more complex and require staff review. Lower-income audits are typically more automated, allowing the IRS to continue performing such audits even with fewer staff.
  • “Auditing requires auditors to properly respond to taxpayers with increasingly complex business and investment activities,” wrote Douglas O’Donnell, deputy commissioner of services and enforcement at the IRS, in response to the report. “Greater complexity requires greater sophistication and skill as well as applying more time to perform the necessary review of information and to properly apply the law. The more complex the audit, the more time is required of our most experienced auditors and others involved (e.g. international and valuation) and Chief Counsel. The IRS has lost many thousands of employees to attrition, including those with the most sophisticated skills. We have been unable to replace them due to shrinking appropriations.”
  • House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee chair Bill Pascrell, D-New Jersey said, “The findings by the GAO on IRS auditing rates are another five-alarm fire bell for our national tax system,” Pascrell said in a statement Tuesday. “Over the last decade, accountability for the wealthiest tax cheats has plummeted so far it almost hits the floor. Looking at the numbers, a tax filer making less than $25,000 a year is more than twice as likely to be audited as someone with between $200,000 and $500,000 in income. I worry well-off taxpayers are not going to be pursued at the rate things are going.”

CONCLUSION


It has been almost two months since this information about the IRS shredding all of these documents and not having the trained personnel to perform audits of higher income returns came to light.  

Instead of looking at what is plain to all of us outside D.C.—the income/payroll tax is broken beyond repair, Congressman Pascrell blames IRS Commissioner Rettig and the other IRS employees.  The Congressman believes that any problems with the income/payroll tax system can be remedied if the IRS just “Did its job.”

The IRS claims that in order to have any chance of handling all of their responsibilities properly, it needs billions of dollars to totally revamp their computer systems and to hire and train enough people to do the job.  Even if they get it, there is no guarantee that the steadily rising level of illegal tax evasion will decline or that the IRS will provide better service.

Does anyone who doesn’t have a vested interest in the present income/payroll tax system think that the IRS can be saved by just pouring more money into a terminally wounded agency?

This whole debate on “fixing” the IRS is an insult to our intelligence.  It can’t be done.  

This is particularly frustrating for the rest of us because there is a much better alternative to the income/payroll tax system---the FAIRtax.  The FAIRtax is a consumption tax that’s paid anonymously at the cash register when you make retail purchases of new goods or services.

The following facts about the FAIRtax are indisputable:
 
  • Lower and middle income earners are much better off under the FAIRtax than under the current income tax thanks to the prebate that completely untaxes spending up to the poverty level.  You take care of your family’s basic needs before you pay a dime to the federal government.
  • The FAIRtax eliminates federal withholding and payroll taxes.  Workers bring home the full amount of their paychecks.
  • Since you control what you buy, how much you spend and when you spend it, the FAIRtax gives you back control of when you pay your taxes and how much you pay.
  • The FAIRtax clearly shows how much tax you pay on every retail receipt.  The true cost of the federal government will no longer be hidden from us.
  • The FAIRtax is incredibly simple.  It doesn’t require tens of thousands of pages of incomprehensible laws, regulations, rulings and court decisions to define and explain it.
  • The FAIRtax is collected by the states and remitted to the federal government.  No administration or enforcement is required at the federal level, so instead of sucking up billions more of our tax dollars, the IRS is completely eliminated.
  • The FAIRtax completely eliminates tax returns.  No more keeping receipts.  No more personal or business audits.  No more sensitive personal data in government computers that can be hacked or leaked for political purposes.
  • The FAIRtax dramatically decreases the cost of doing business.  There will be no more tax liability and compliance costs being passed on to consumers in the prices of every product and service we buy.
  • The FAIRtax levels the playing field between American and foreign manufacturers in the world market.  Foreign products will no longer enjoy a price advantage over comparable American products because the prices of American products will no longer contain the embedded costs of the income/payroll tax system.
  • Congress can no longer grant special favors to their friends and punish their enemies by manipulating the tax code.  That will have to be done with legislation that is much more open to public scrutiny.
  • The FAIRtax actually taxes the wealthy.  With no exemptions, deductions and loopholes, it’s mathematically impossible for people not to pay their fair share.

The income/payroll tax system is broken and no longer working—we can’t repair it but we can replace it with the FAIRTAX!
 
ALL AMERICANS MUST JOIN US BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE AND THE WONDERFUL COUNTRY WE LOVE IS FURTHER HARMED.

Join us and TAKE BACK CONTROL OF OUR COUNTRY—NOT WITH BULLETS BUT WITH THE ELIMINATION OF ONE OF THE BIGGEST THREATS TO OUR LIBERTY AND ECONOMIC PROSPERITY—THE INCOME/PAYROLL TAX.

We all should remember Edmund Burke’s warning that applies to our efforts to TAKE BACK CONTROL,
 

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”

We should also remember this quote from George Orwell's 1984, which, if we do nothing, may foretell your and your children's future:

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”

WHAT CAN EACH OF US DO? 

We can write letters and make calls to our elected representatives and attend Zoom town hall meetings demanding that if they really want to allow Americans to “TAKE BACK CONTROL”, the first step is to eliminate the income/payroll tax system and enact the
FAIRTAX!

TAKE BACK CONTROL!   Help us PASS THE FAIRTAX!

The IRS will be gone and we will pay our taxes when we make purchases.  

WE and not the Ruling Class and their minions in D.C. will decide how much federal tax we pay!

WE will know how much tax we and everyone else are really paying because taxes will no longer be hidden from us.  It will be clearly shown on every retail receipt.

If you have friends who don’t know about the FAIRtax, send them to  FAIRtax.org.  Have them watch the white boards under “How It Works” and, if they agree, ask them to please join us.

Then contact your Members of Congress and the President and demand that Congress pass -the FAIRtax—the only fair tax

Is it hopeless?  When confronted with a seemingly impossible problem, remember the statement attributed to the author George Bernard Shaw who wrote, You see things; and you say “Why?”  But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”

Isn’t it time for us to ask, “Why not?”  
 
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IRS by twenty20photos is licensed under Envato Elements Envato Elements

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Americans for Fair Taxation® is a 501(c)(4) non-profit, non-partisan grassroots organization solely dedicated to replacing the current income tax system with a fair, simple and transparent national consumption tax – the FAIRtax® Plan. We rely entirely on contributions from concerned citizens like you who want a tax system that will generate jobs and stimulate the economy. Welcome to the FAIRtax team!

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