For John, BLUF: What kind of a culture exists where the ethics person is corrupt? Nothing to see here; just move along.
From The Washington Times, by Reporter Jim EcElhatton, we have a very short article, "IRS ethics lawyer facing possible disbarment, accused of lying".
Imagine!
Hat tip to the Instapundit.
Regards — Cliff
2 comments:
The Ethics at the IRS is as complex as their income tax code.
A few years back I read about the period in the United States when Andrew William Mellon, of the Pennsylvania Mellon Family, was appointed as the Secretary of the Treasury from 1921 to 1932. He came to the post from having been an extremely successful banker and businessman. As I recall, during his tenure he proposed great tax cuts at a time when the US faced enormous WWI debt. His policies were amazingly progressive and beneficial because he understood well that increasing the tax burden on the middle class and poor who already have so little money is inefficient. However, to excessively tax the wealthy is just as pointless because it drives them from the country or inclines them to find every possible loophole to avoid the excessive taxes. He lowered everybody's individual income rates and the money came rolling into the government and more importantly the economy.
However, for as progressive as Mellon's policies were it seems that everybody misses the fact that it is the corporations who have the really BIG MONEY. What is needed is not a harsh income tax plan, but one that is easy and simple.
The IRS should not need thousands of lines listing all the possible exemptions. Corporations should not need to hire tax specialists who can manage to keep every dollar away from their supporting the USA. It is terribly embarrassing that Fortune 100 company's pay less than 0.25% in corporate taxes when the rest of us who have by comparison little money routinely pay a sales tax of around 6% (in Massachusetts), and that is not even figuring in the individual income tax rate which is substantially higher.
I strongly believe that if the tax codes were greatly simplified so that corporations had to pay 2-5% of their earnings in taxes to the IRS, with only TWO very simple deductions 1) for all the salaries they pay to over half-time employees who have been on their payroll for 6 months within a year or longer so as not to double tax the salaries and 2) for any real estate taxes they pay on their holdings so as not to double tax the real estate.
It is horrible that these companies "move in an accounting sense" large amounts of money "offshore tax wise" so as to avoid paying Uncle Sam; yet these moneys are used in the estimation of their US corporation's overall worth which drives the value of the stock prices in the markets.
Do yourself a favor and take a look at the latest financial statement from a few of the fortune 100 companies and see how much they move out and how relatively little taxes they pay our government and municipalities. Yet they still use our roads, our emergency services relying on police and fire services that they get essentially for free because it is the taxes we pay that in most cases pay for these benefits. The corporations should pay less to their tax specialists and pay more to help keep the US going strong.
If the Fortune Five Hundred (500) corporations consistently paid taxes somewhere in the neighborhood from 2-5% percent on their declared earnings over the next 15 years, with just the two deductions I gave, I think we could effectively BALANCE this budget even as excessive as it is.
On the other hand taxing the individual citizens to the sky will never do anything except cause suffering and eventual riots. It may seem that in the end the private citizen will bear the burden of this corporate tax, but I truly believe this is a myth the corporations perpetuate. This is like skimming the fat from the turkey gravy.
Flat tax!!! And I believe that the only reason we don't have one today is political. First and foremost, a flat tax would cause the elimination of much of the IRS, a useful political weapon as well as a very influential "lobby" in Congress. A 5 or 6 percent flat tax would not be onerous and would eliminate the need for any significant tax code. If corporations really ARE people, then they would be taxed AS people. Trust me, 5% of posted earnings of $14M is a nice chunk of change, and yet it pumps 95% of those earnings back into "circulation."
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