IRS WILL BE GETTING HOSTILE

I've got a good a decent tax man. His name's Ned Beckman, and he has worked at a decent rate and honestly for me for quite a few years now. He sent the following article to all his clients in his yearly letter and reminder that tax time is at hand once again.

[Open quote.] After years of declining audit frequency in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s the IRS has reorganized and resumed the audit trail. Significant additions to the Auditing Staff will target high income taxpayers, corporations, non-profits, certain tax shelters, trusts and those who are self-employed.

Audit rates, while appearing relatively low, at around 1% in total, are up 50% over the most recent tax years and will be increasing dramatically among target segments according to the new IRS Commissioner, Mark Everson. According to Everson, there are two major reasons to increase audits:

1. the percent of taxpayers reporting it is ok to cheat on their return is up (17% in 2003 vs. 11% in 1999).

2. for every $1 added to the enforcement budget, the IRS realizes a return of $5 to $10.

Tax fraud is an on-going concern of the department. It includes under-reporting of income, over-stating deductible expenses, and falsifying claims for specific tax credits such as the Earned Income Credit. The IRS considers it our responsibility as taxpayers to file a timely and true tax return. [Close quote.]

Thanks, Ned. I do get tired of carrying the tax deadbeats on my back, people who benefit from our American system, yet who don't want to carry their fair share of keeping society economically just and caring and, therefore, turmoil free. They think they can prosper and do well and let those less well off go hang, then they scream when crime comes calling or retreat into gated communities.


SPEAKING OF LIES AND LIARS AND OTHER BUSHNITWITTICISMS

Allan Sloan continues to speak the truth in Newsweek (Dec 27, 2004). How come Americans don't listen? Is it that they really can't read so they continue to be misled by talk radio's Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Hannity-enough-yet? The following is a hard fact, a FACT, which fact I can't see Bush explaining if only his rabid fans would ask him to explain. But they won't. Honesty was never a fundamentalist's strong suit.

"Every thing’s relative," Sloan writes. "Bush talked about Social Security’s being a $10.4 trillion problem. That’s how much you’d have to give Social Security today for it to continue paying benefits indefinitely under its current formula. But the shortfall in Bush’s Medicare drug program is $17 trillion. In other words, the problem that Bush himself created a year ago is two thirds again as large as Social Security’s problem. What’s more, the drug plan starts costing taxpayers big bucks just a year from now, in 2006."

I hope that's clear enough and doesn't need further explaining. But beyond that fundamental fact, Sloan writes, as I've read many another reporter to say, "If absolutely nothing changes, there will be a Social Security 'crisis' But you can put the program back on course with a few tweaks—including small private accounts, if you like. You can raise the retirement age; modify the benefit formula; raise the wage base on which Social Security taxes are collected ($90,000 in 2005); trim payments for high-end folks like me. Bush, though, has ruled out many of these remedies because he wants to make good on his pledge not to change benefits or raise taxes."

I say (unlike Sloan who's kinder than I am) when Bush speaks of "fixing" SSI, he means "fix it" like a "fixer" fixes a problem for gangsters. That is, rub it out. Bush and his Republican colleagues mean to wipe out SSI. First, they spent decades convincing the younger gens that SSI would not be around for them. Then they somehow convinced them not to vote Democrat because they Dems would keep SSI around. It's so simple: if you want SSI to remain for you, vote Democrat. If you want SSI destroyed, vote Republican. Whether or not SSI is around for you depends strictly on you and who you vote for. It's in your hands. America and Americans can direct government anyway they want it to be.

Besides, the supposed crisis will only be around for twenty years, then the bubble will pass and a smaller generation will follow the boomers, then another bubble of boomer's babies, then another smaller generation. Twenty years is nothing in the life of a great country. What the hell are we worrying about anyway?