IRS to Have Budget Cut if Congress Has Anything to Say About It
Things aren’t looking good for the IRS. First, they go after conservative groups without mercy either making them wait for months or even years before approving their 501(c)4 application or they demand additional information from the groups that other non-conservative groups like them do not need to provide. Then, Lois Lerner swears under oath she did nothing wrong but won’t elaborate, pleading the fifth as a response to every question posed to her.
Eventually, Lois Lerner steps down and is replaced by John Koskinen. He seems to play the same game that Lerner did by stonewalling a congressional committee, first announcing that it would take months or even years to provide the requested Lois Lerner emails that had been stored on a server. Then, Congress is told that the emails in questions were lost due to a computer crash.
Now, the IRS has received an additional subpoena demanding they turn over the hard drive that contained the Lerner emails. We’ll see what happens, but it certainly appears as though there is some chicanery going on. One cannot help but wonder if it wouldn’t have been easier for the IRS to simply tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may. But there are too many areas of corruption and cronyism (allegedly) in the federal government today.
I’m not opposed to paying taxes. There has never been a time when I didn’t pay. I always paid my taxes and was even audited by the IRS not long after we began a small business. Nothing was found amiss. Again, I don’t have a problem paying taxes. What I have a problem with is when it appears as though there are privileges given to some while others are often targeted. That’s not the way things are supposed to be done.
In response to this, the House of Representatives has decided that they are going to okay a budget for the IRS, but in effect, that budget will be rolled back to 2008 levels, a cut of roughly 15% overall. It’s being reduced by $1.5 billion dollars. “The goal is to keep the tax agency focused on its “core duties,” and eliminate efforts to judge the political activities of tax-exempt groups and brake its implementation of Obamacare.”
Essentially, any group that applies for a 501(c)4 has the right to be involved in politics and it should NOT matter to the IRS (or anyone else) what that particular group’s base is – whether conservative or liberal. Just because people become upset about the fact that conservatives say things that leftists don’t like does not mean they have no right to have a non-profit organization. There are certainly guidelines, but if one group is going to be attacked because of their conservative leanings, that should apply across the board to all groups. In reality, it doesn’t though and most of us know that, even if representatives from the IRS want to deny it.
Of course, it’s not just this particular issue that has many in the House upset. The problem also has to do with “lavish spending on conventions and bonuses and a new push to re-evaluate the tax exempt status of political groups” that has drawn the ire of many. Where is the fiscal responsibility?
The IRS is coming down on conservative groups for their political beliefs, yet they apparently have no problem giving many within the IRS tremendous bonuses, spending millions of taxpayer dollars on conventions, and now they have determined that they need to look even closer at political groups and their tax exempt status? What about their own interior waste when it comes to spending? It’s absurd and if not for the fact that their probe of conservative groups came to light, we probably wouldn’t know about all the rest either.
Whether the Senate follows suit on this reduction in budget for the IRS, the statement is being made by the House based on the inability of the IRS to scrutinize its own expenditures and policies. Something definitely needs to happen and cutting budgets and at least part of this new bill deals with Obamacare. “The bill also includes provisions to stop the IRS from further implementing ObamaCare, including a prohibition on any transfers of funding from the Department of Health and Human Services to the IRS for ObamaCare uses, and a prohibition on funding for the IRS to implement an individual insurance mandate on the American people.”
Federal agencies cannot continue to spend taxpayer dollars hand over fist while the country falls over the cliff of financial oblivion. Something needs to be done and this is a good place to start.
Entry filed under: Shadow Government.
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