When accounting goes unaccounted for
Remember how the military tried to recruit Call of Duty players to be drone pilots? Maybe the IRS can take a page from their book and convince young people there is first-person fun to be had bum-rushing naughty taxpayers’ homes.
If you’re a bigshot at the IRS there are a lot of things that you don’t have to do. For one, you don’t really have to meet anyone’s expectations. For another, you don’t have to worry about delaying plans just because some practicing CPAs have some silly concerns.
The latest perk of being Doug Shulman? Not having to apologize to anyone.
TaxProf Blog:
The Tax Court yesterday ruled that it lacks jurisdiction to order the IRS to apologize to a taxpayer. Caldwell v. Commissioner, T.C. Summ. Op. 2009-169 (Nov. 18, 2009):
The part of Caldwell’s motion which we characterize as a “Request for Apology” asks that we require the IRS to enter into the record “a written apology to the Petitioner, signed by the Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service” …
…
The IRS objected to the Request for Apology on the ground that Congress has not, through section 7430 (relating to administrative or litigation costs) or otherwise, authorized us to grant such relief. [Fn.3] We agree.
There you have it American Taxpayer. Under the law, the IRS doesn’t have to apologize to anyone, despite the evidence that they should probably be apologizing constantly. Going forward, if you want an apology, run down a Republican member of the House of Representatives.
Court Lacks Jurisdiction to Order IRS to Apologize to Taxpayer [TaxProf Blog via Tax Update Blog]
That’s according to Janet Napolitano. Who knew that the Homeland Security Secretary was such an adept hair-splitter?
From the Washington Post 44 Blog: “To our belief, he was a lone wolf. He used a terrorist tactic, but an individual who uses a terrorist tactic doesn’t necessarily mean they are part of an organized group attempting an attack on the United States,” Napolitano said.
We decided to get to the bottom of this. Here’s the definition of “terrorism”:
The systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion
Okay then. The applicable definition of “terror”:
Violent or destructive acts (as bombing) committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands.
So “groups” is the key word here. Fine but does that include Facebook groups because, “His name is Joseph Stack” has 357 members. And did she run this past Treasury? Geithner and Shulman might have a different opinion.
In semi-related news, the SEC has announced that they will determine a “single high quality global definition of terrorism” within five years, at which time, any attacks on SEC facilities will be appropriately classified.
The Internal Revenue Service has rejected a reward claim made by a whistleblower, former banker […]
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Are they really hiring 87,000 actual agents? Or are a lot of these jobs going to be filing, answering phones, sorting mail, low level admin tasks that have very little to do with actual audits.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with the IRS getting a bigger budget. Anyone who’s been on hold for 6 hours to talk to someone at the IRS just to verify some taxpayer data should welcome this news.
All this scaremongering is silly, and so is all the animosity towards the IRS. It’s like being mad the police because they arrest you for robbing a bank, they just enforce the laws – they don’t make them.
Everyone need to chill. The IRS has been long overdue for a larger budget and and upgrade on their systems. This is a good thing everyone. Relax.
Not quite. People are, correctly, angry with the police for harassment or overreach of authority, and having more IRS agents will have the same effect. Animosity toward the IRS is wholly justified and fear of its expansion is rational.
Just like the police, it’s not just about enforcing the laws, but how the laws are enforced. How they exercise their power.
And, further, if the laws they are enforcing are unjust, opposing the arm of enforcement is also reasonable.
A huge expansion of the IRS is not something to be celebrated.
Uhh idk about y’all but I’ll celebrate the IRS hiring people to answer the phones for sure
In over 100 years there have only ever been 8-9,000 IRS Agents filling law enforcement positions…the 87,000 are more likely to be revenue agents, auditors, and admin staff…
I’m sorry, but I kind of love that one dude with “CPA” written on his little military style helmet. Gonna go show this pic to my kids and tell them that’s what mommy does for a living.