IRS: ‘The Odor Of Extortion’
“People say the government makes no money, but that’s not true. They make money like any bandit or robber does.” – Jarod Kintz
You know him or her. They are honest people who work hard and pay their bills. He or she is a small business owner who accepts a mix of cash and credit cards for payment. Each day, they faithfully deposit that day’s cash into their bank account. This is the money that will be used to pay their employees and their bills.
Imagine the shock when they log on to their bank account and find that their bank balance has been wiped out – zero – nada – nothing. Thinking there must be some mistake, because they know generally what their balance should be, they immediately call their bank.
What they hear brings them to near collapse. They’re not the victims of hacking, at least not in the traditional sense; they’re the victim of what Forbes contributor Rick Ungar has aptly labeled “grand larceny.” And the perpetrator: the U.S. Government, specifically, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
This week The New York Times and the Institute for Justice (the Institute) blew the lid off how the IRS uses civil forfeiture laws to steal cash from innocent Americans’ bank accounts: no criminal charges, no investigation – just an ex parte warrant and the IRS’ “suspicion” that you might be up to something nefarious like tax evasion or drug laundering.
According to the NY Times, the Institute analyzed “structuring data from the IRS, which made 639 seizures in 2012, up from 114 in 2005. Only one in five was prosecuted as a criminal structuring case.”
And once they steal your cash, get ready to shell out upwards of $20,000 or more in legal fees and even then you may get less than 20 percent of your money back.
That’s why Ungar, a left-leaning senior political commentator and host of Sirius XM’s Steele & Ungar, lamented in Forbes that the IRS’s actions were “nothing short of grand larceny,” adding, “how does that not have the odor of extortion?”
Ungar’s blistering commentary concluded, “Whatever you think of the IRS scandal of recent years, it pales in comparison to what we are seeing take place here. …if the President fails to publicly condemn this, he will have given those of us who believe in government as a tool to greatly benefit the people every reason to feel betrayed and left to be defined as fools.”
Thus far, the President has remained silent. And while the IRS issued a typical double-speak statement, they offered no apology or reimbursement to the victims of their fully sanctioned theft operation.
What’s most perplexing, however, is the deafening silence from Congress.
When the IRS comes like a thief in the night and steals our cash (with full impunity), our top law enforcement agency (Department of Justice) refuses to investigate the IRS’ partisan targeting and illegal release of taxpayer records, and our elected officials sit in stone cold silence, where do We the People turn for justice?
There are only two solutions to this problem. One is the ballot box andTuesday is Election Day. Will you continue the status quo or will you have the courage to stand up and finally say, “enough is enough” – regardless of party? That decision alone could initiate seismic waves of change.
The second answer is the ultimate enactment of the FairTax® Plan. The FairTax is the only tax plan that replaces the income tax and eliminates the IRS. In a way, you hold the key to both solutions.
As Mike Huckabee writes in his latest article, “…as Americans, we are all guilty of one inexcusable sin: continuing to tolerate this out-of-control rogue agency that thumbs its nose at us even as it’s trampling our constitutional rights. It’s long past time for the Fair Tax.”
Finally, as candidates go into the final days of the 2014 midterms the mud’s slinging and the vitriol is erupting. And candidates who stand FairTax strong are fighting mistruths, half-truths and outright falsehoods.
One such candidate in the Georgia Senate race, David Perdue, is defending his FairTax support against opponent Michelle Nunn. And wouldn’t you know Neal Boortz has something to say about it! Like him or despise him, he always has an opinion. Click here to see what Neal’s saying now.
