"At a tax symposium at Pepperdine Law School last week, former IRS chief counsel Donald Korb was asked, "On a scale of 1-10 ... how damaging is the current IRS scandal?"
His answer: 9.5. Other tax experts on the panel called it "awful," and said that it has done "tremendous damage."
I think that's right. And I think that the damage extends well beyond the Internal Revenue Service. In fact, I think that the government agency suffering the most damage isn't the IRS, but the National Security Agency. Because the NSA, even more than the IRS, depends on public trust. And now that the IRS has been revealed to be a political weapon, it's much harder for people to have faith in the NSA.
As I warned President Obama back in 2009 after he "joked" about having his enemies audited, the IRS depends on trust:
Should the IRS come to be seen as just a bunch of enforcers for whoever is in political power, the result would be an enormous loss of legitimacy for the tax system. Our income-tax system is based on voluntary compliance and honest reporting by citizens."...
I was glad to hear this. I don't think it'll make a difference what he says, but at least a powerful voice is telling Congress the right thing.
Apple CEO One On One Tim Cook on what every American should know about this country's surveillance program.
01/24/2014
Tim Cook: The government doesn't have access to our servers. They would have to cart us out in a box for that and that will not happen. We feel that strongly about it.
Reporter: Do you think Americans, Tim, would be more at ease if you could tell them more.
Tim Cook: I do.
Reporter: Are you going to press congress for more transparency.
Tim Cook: Yes, absolutely.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
ScienceChic wrote: I was glad to hear this. I don't think it'll make a difference what he says, but at least a powerful voice is telling Congress the right thing.
Apple CEO One On One Tim Cook on what every American should know about this country's surveillance program.
01/24/2014
Tim Cook: The government doesn't have access to our servers. They would have to cart us out in a box for that and that will not happen. We feel that strongly about it.
Reporter: Do you think Americans, Tim, would be more at ease if you could tell them more.
Tim Cook: I do.
Reporter: Are you going to press congress for more transparency.
Tim Cook: Yes, absolutely.
I'll be glad to hear this when it's coming from our government.
But it won't RR. Our government would never admit it. How could they, some of them don't have a clue what is going on except for their own personal gain.
ScienceChic wrote: I was glad to hear this. I don't think it'll make a difference what he says, but at least a powerful voice is telling Congress the right thing.
Apple CEO One On One Tim Cook on what every American should know about this country's surveillance program.
01/24/2014
Tim Cook: The government doesn't have access to our servers. They would have to cart us out in a box for that and that will not happen. We feel that strongly about it.
Reporter: Do you think Americans, Tim, would be more at ease if you could tell them more.
Tim Cook: I do.
Reporter: Are you going to press congress for more transparency.
Tim Cook: Yes, absolutely.
I don't know much about Cook, but I would have been more impressed if he brought this up before Snowden forced them to talk about it. The CEOs are just covering their tails now that the public is aware. Even if they were under a gag order, they could have complained to Congress years ago.
If you want to be, press one. If you want not to be, press 2
Republicans are red, democrats are blue, neither of them, gives a flip about you.
Venturer wrote: How many liberal media places picked it up and used it. Nice for him to say but it doesn't make a bit of difference. It will be buried.
"Over the last seven days, three major revelations have emerged surrounding the IRS’ targeting of Tea Party groups. Despite the new stories, on Sunday April 13, three of the four Sunday interview shows on the broadcast networks -- NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation and ABC’s This Week -- all ignored them, whereas Fox News Sunday was the only broadcast network program to mention the IRS at all."...
"According to documents recently obtained by House investigators, the Internal Revenue Service may have been caught violating federal tax law when the agency allegedly transferred confidential information pertaining to a number of 501(c)(4) groups to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
According to a report from the National Review‘s Eliana Johnson, the “information was transmitted in advance of former IRS official Lois Lerner’s meeting the same month with Justice Department officials about the possibility of using campaign-finance laws to prosecute certain nonprofit groups.”...
LOL wrote: Probably the big cheese at the big three lame stream news networks don't want to rock the boat and get audited. Wussies!
And while LOL is joking, fear of a partisan IRS could restrict other parties from fielding candidates. If Jill Stein runs in 2016, will she be audited along with any of the people working for the Green Party or sending money to them?
Even if you are innocent, an audit can be expensive and time consuming, and while you may not have done anything wrong, the tax code is so complex, they still might be able to find something.
Team Obama: Weaponizing the IRS.
And like above, the press won't talk about the big bully IRS because they don't want to be singled out either.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
