Tax Issues:I Wonder If Tom Daschle Still Thinks That The IRS Should "Enforce Our Laws To The Letter"?

"Tax cheaters cheat us all",huh? That's what Tom Daschle said back in 1999,which you can see in this video.Now,it turns out that he was talking about himself.Yes,the tax evader paid his back taxes.But,would it have ever come to that if he wasn't being vetted as the Health & Human Services Secretary? He knew that he owed those taxes,I'm certain of that!Tom Daschle is a hypocrite! Now there is news of yet another nominee with tax issues!Here's more from The NY Times:

"President Obama’s choice for the position of chief White House performance officer has withdrawn from consideration for the post, an administration official said Tuesday, after coming forward with concerns about her tax returns.

Nancy Killefer, appointed by the president last month to a new position to scrutinize government spending, told the administration on Monday that she intended to step down from the position at the Office of Management and Budget. An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the announcement was not finalized, confirmed that Ms. Killefer’s withdrawal came because of questions with her taxes. Update: In her resignation letter to Mr. Obama, she described the problem as a tax-related issue stemming from Washington, D.C. unemployment.

The withdrawal, first reported by NBC News, came as the White House was already grappling with controversy over the tax returns of Tom Daschle, the president’s choice to lead the Health and Human Services Department. Ms. Killefer’s post, as a deputy at O.M.B., required Senate confirmation."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here:http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/citing-tax-troubles-an-obama-appointee-withdraws/?partner=rss&emc=rss

How come the IRS didn't ever audit any of these people,like they do regular folks?It's because they are more likely to go after the poor & middle-class Americans!I've been audited before & I am far from being wealthy.Why didn't the IRS ever go after any of these people? They only revealed their own tax problems because they were under a microscope! Wealthy tax cheaters appear to be an issue that the IRS isn't all that concerned about.Here's more from PERRspectives Blog:

"According to the Times, deputy IRS commissioner Kevin Brown confirmed the cuts, but claimed that "because far fewer people were obliged to pay estate taxes under President Bush's legislation." Brown also rejected as "preposterous" the notion that IRS looked the other way when it came to rich tax cheaters.

Sadly for Brown, the data suggests otherwise. Six years ago, the I.R.S. reported that 85 percent of large taxable gifts it audited shortchanged the government. And as the Times details:

Over the last five years, officials at both the I.R.S. and the Treasury have told Congress that cheating among the highest-income Americans is a major and growing problem.
Which is exactly the way Congressional Republicans want it. As David Cay Johnston describes in his book Perfectly Legal, the GOP during the Clinton administration waged an all-out war on the IRS, turning the priorities for auditing Americans upside-down. As Senator William Roth's Finance Committee held hearings in 1997 and 1998, Mississippi's Trent Lott and Alaska's Frank Murkowski decried the IRS' "Gestapo-like tactics." Don Nickles of Oklahoma raged, "The IRS is out of control!" Congress went on to pass and Bill Clinton signed the IRS Reform and Restructuring Act in 1998.

Those reforms in essence gave wealthier Americans carte blanche to cheat and fundamentally undermined tax fairness in the United States. Within one year, property seizures for unpaid taxes dropped by 98%. Liens were sliced by three quarters and levies on bank accounts by two-thirds. Johnston describes (p. 134) the overnight shift of tax policing onto poorer Americans:

In 1999, for the first time, the poor were more likely than the rich to have their tax returns audited. The overall rate for people making less than $25,000 a year was 1.36%, compared with 1.15% of returns by those making $100,000 or more...Over the previous 11 years audit rates for the poor had increased by a third, while falling 90 percent for the top tier of Americans.
The IRS' free ride for the wealthy was accompanied by a crackdown on Americans who qualified for the Earned Income Tax Credit. Targeting lower-income Americans "who work hard and play by the rules", the popular and often bipartisan EITC has long been in the cross hairs of the GOP class warriors like Nickles, who called it "a welfare program." The result, as Johnston details (p. 132):

The IRS audited 397,000 of the working poor who applied for the credit in 2001, eight times as many audits as it conducted of people making $100,000 or more. That works out to one of every 47 returns seeking the credit, compared to about one in every 366 taxpayers who did not apply for it.
Fast forward to 2006. The Bush administration, by hook or by crook, remains determined to kill the estate tax. Since 2001, President Bush and the Republican leadership have pushing to eliminate the so-called "death tax," a levy paid by only 1% of American families. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates abolition of the estate tax would burn a $1 trillion hole in the U.S. budget over 10 years. A supposed compromise version passed by the House GOP in June, that would raise the eligible estate size while cutting the rate from 45% to the capital gains rate of 15%, would be nearly as destructive. CBPP forecasts that the House bill would cost American taxpayers $750 billion in lost revenue and increased interest payments on the national debt.

As with most initiatives of the Bush administrations, the motivation and intent of the IRS cuts is quite transparent. As John Hruska, an IRS estate tax lawyer in New York put it, "This is not a game the poor will win, but the rich will." The result, as Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union summed it up, "a lot of taxes that should be paid will go uncollected, and that impacts every taxpayer who is paying their fair share."(END OF EXCERPT)Read the entire article here:http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000534.htm