CNS: IRS Sent more than 300 tax refunds to one address for $150K in China

[happyg]

By: Michael Chapman (CNS News)

A new audit-report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) shows that the IRS sent at least 343 potentially fraudulent tax returns in 2011 to the same, single address in Shanghai, China, for a total of $156,533 in tax refunds.

The same report also shows that 655 potentially fraudulent tax refunds totaling $220,489 were sent to the same address in Kaunas, Lithuania. Other potentially fraudulent refunds, 580 of them, were sent to the same address in Orlando, Fla.; 355 to the same address in Lakewood, Colo; and another 291 to another single address in Orlando, Fla.

In total, those potentially fraudulent refunds totaled $2,715,391.

On a related note, the TIGTA report, which analyzed Tax Year 2011 tax returns, showed that at least 3,145 persons applied for potentially fraudulent Individual Tax Identification Numbers from the same address at five different locations in the United States: one in Santa Ana, Calif; one in Salinas, Calif.; one in Mountlake Terrace, Wash.; one in Milwaukee, Wisc.; and one in Sanford, N.C.

Moreover, the top five countries (not counting the USA)  the IRS sent tax refunds to, to addresses that were potentially fraudulent were Bulgaria, 701 tax returns; Lithuania, 676 returns; Ireland, 657 returns; China 443 returns; and Canada, 337 tax returns.

In those countries, the refunds were not sent to the same address respectively, but many were and the audit tagged characteristics in other addresses that it determined indicated potential fraudulence.

The total refunds sent to those 5 countries equaled  $1,941,544.
http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/11/07/cns-internal-revenue-service-sent-more-300-tax-refunds-totaling-150k-one-address-china

[Bigun]

We will never again be a truly FREE people for so long as we continue to abide the Marxist income tax and the IRS!

http://fairtax.org

[xfreeper]

wonder how many refund checks were sent to nigeria

[Oceander]

We will never again be a truly FREE people for so long as we continue to abide the Marxist income tax and the IRS!

http://fairtax.org

The income tax - or any other tax for that matter - is not "marxist"; it's simply a tax, one amongst many available to a sovereign.  However, if we're going to attach political labels to various taxes then that old standby of the American tax system, one that's been pervasive in this country since before 1776, the property tax would be substantially more "marxist."  An income tax, by comparison, is much fairer because it is necessarily calibrated to each individual's ability to pay; except in the limiting case of a 100% income tax, each individual will always have more income than tax liability and will therefore always be able to pay the tax.  By contrast, property taxes are imposed on the assessed value of the property in question and must be paid - at the risk of losing the taxed property - regardless of whether the owner has the ability to pay the tax or not.

A property tax is also a much more efficient means of pursuing the class struggle than an income tax would ever be:  an income tax hits all alike, both proletariat - the workers - and bourgeoisie - the propertied classes - and, in fact, can be regressive - weighing more heavily on the workers - since most workers rely on their income as their sole source of money whereas the bourgeoisie can spend accumulated capital on living expenses without earning a red cent and pay no income tax at all, even though that person may be living much more luxuriously than any worker could afford.

By contrast, a property tax hits the bourgeoisie where it hurts:  their accumulated wealth, and hits the proletariat not at all, since almost all proles own no real property, own no investment property, and relatively little personal property.


As for the IRS, unless one is proposing that the federal government live on fresh air and sea water, or act as a for-profit business, competing with private businesses in the provision of goods and services, then there will of necessity always be an office of the executive side of the government tasked with the collection of, and accounting for, the tax revenues collected by the government - even if those revenues consist of nothing more than the Constitutionally enumerated excise and duty taxes - and since the bulk of those revenues would be collected from Americans - i.e., internally rather than externally (like a customs duty) - that office would most likely end up being referred to by its primary function - collecting internal revenues - which would naturally result in the office being known as the "Internal Revenue Office" which is essentially the same as the "Internal Revenue Service."

In short, there will always be taxes, and therefore there will always be tax collectors.  And since there have to be taxes, it would be better if those taxes took into account each individual's ability to pay, and therefore an income tax would be preferable to a property tax.

[flowers]

fl

[Oceander]

fl

??

[Rapunzel]

??

for later

[Bigun]

The income tax - or any other tax for that matter - is not "marxist"; it's simply a tax, one amongst many available to a sovereign.

So YOU say! I beg to differ given the fact that Marx and Engles specifically called for "a heavy progressive income tax" in their Manifesto
of the Communist Party I say that makes the income tax a decidedly Marxist tax!

Quoting from the section of that document in which they instruct fellow travelers on how they are to take over developed countries (second section Entitled PROLETARIANS AND COMMUNISTS:

..."The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. "

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html

And then we have this:


“The greatest tool Communism has in our toolbox is the progressive income tax.”-- Karl Marx

[Bigun]

However, if we're going to attach political labels to various taxes then that old standby of the American tax system, one that's been pervasive in this country since before 1776, the property tax would be substantially more "marxist."  An income tax, by comparison, is much fairer because it is necessarily calibrated to each individual's ability to pay; except in the limiting case of a 100% income tax, each individual will always have more income than tax liability and will therefore always be able to pay the tax.  By contrast, property taxes are imposed on the assessed value of the property in question and must be paid - at the risk of losing the taxed property - regardless of whether the owner has the ability to pay the tax or not.

A property tax is also a much more efficient means of pursuing the class struggle than an income tax would ever be:  an income tax hits all alike, both proletariat - the workers - and bourgeoisie - the propertied classes - and, in fact, can be regressive - weighing more heavily on the workers - since most workers rely on their income as their sole source of money whereas the bourgeoisie can spend accumulated capital on living expenses without earning a red cent and pay no income tax at all, even though that person may be living much more luxuriously than any worker could afford.

By contrast, a property tax hits the bourgeoisie where it hurts:  their accumulated wealth, and hits the proletariat not at all, since almost all proles own no real property, own no investment property, and relatively little personal property.

I happen to agree with you here and since we also find "1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. " In their Manifesto I suppose we can call property taxes Marxist as well even though, as you rightly point out, they have been around since long before Marx was born as have forms of the income tax BTW.

I will add also that as long as we had a system which required that one show ownership of property as a requirement for being able to vote - and thus the citizens who were paying the freight were also the ones who elected the spenders - I had no real problem with that system but that time has passed.

The preexistence of a form of taxation doesn't make it Marxist but the endorsement of Marx surely does!

[Bigun]

As for the IRS, unless one is proposing that the federal government live on fresh air and sea water, or act as a for-profit business, competing with private businesses in the provision of goods and services, then there will of necessity always be an office of the executive side of the government tasked with the collection of, and accounting for, the tax revenues collected by the government - even if those revenues consist of nothing more than the Constitutionally enumerated excise and duty taxes - and since the bulk of those revenues would be collected from Americans - i.e., internally rather than externally (like a customs duty) - that office would most likely end up being referred to by its primary function - collecting internal revenues - which would naturally result in the office being known as the "Internal Revenue Office" which is essentially the same as the "Internal Revenue Service."

In short, there will always be taxes, and therefore there will always be tax collectors.  And since there have to be taxes, it would be better if those taxes took into account each individual's ability to pay, and therefore an income tax would be preferable to a property tax.

You cover a LOT of ground even in this one sentence and I will start by commenting on that portion which I agree. One of the central problems we as a nation face is the FACT that government, at all levels, is already doing exactly as you suggest when you say "...or act as a for-profit business, competing with private businesses in the provision of goods and services,... ".  I could write a book on the evils of that alone but will refrain except to say that every time that has occurred it has been at the expense of the private, tax paying, sector which further puts the squeeze on those private sector entities remaining!

Now! Back to the IRS! I would point out that prior to the exsistance of the income tax we had no such thing in this country as an IRS and there was no need for one. That is one of the main reasons that I advocate so strongly for a return to the form of taxation you rightly point out as being specifically enumerated in our Constitution! Hamilton laid out very well the reasons for that type of taxation in Federalist 21 to which there was no anti-federalist response that I am aware of.  Here is part of what he said "..."It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed - that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty that, "in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four." If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them."
Federalist #21 http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa21.htm

I happen to agree with all of that but there is yet more instruction from the founders on this subject to be found!

"A capitation is more natural to slavery; a duty on merchandise is more natural to liberty, by reason it has not so direct a relation to the person." --Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.

In Federalist 62 we find these words: "...It may be affirmed, on the best grounds, that no small share of the present embarrassments of America is to be charged on the blunders of our governments; and that these have proceeded from the heads rather than the hearts of most of the authors of them. What indeed are all the repealing, explaining, and amending laws, which fill and disgrace our voluminous codes, but so many monuments of deficient wisdom; so many impeachments exhibited by each succeeding against each preceding session; so many admonitions to the people, ...?

....

The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the FEW, not for the MANY.

In another point of view, great injury results from an unstable government. The want of confidence in the public councils damps every useful undertaking, the success and profit of which may depend on a continuance of existing arrangements. What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? What farmer or manufacturer will lay himself out for the encouragement given to any particular cultivation or establishment, when he can have no assurance that his preparatory labors and advances will not render him a victim to an inconstant government? In a word, no great improvement or laudable enterprise can go forward which requires the auspices of a steady system of national policy.
  http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa62.htm

The income tax code has been amended on average once per day since the year 2000!

And then we have this from the father of modern economic thought: “The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other person, so that the tax payer is not put in the power of the tax gatherer.”--Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776


I repeat! "We will never again be a truly FREE people for so long as we continue to abide the Marxist income tax and the IRS!"

So what is my solution?  Well it happens to be a bill currently in both houses of congress (HR25/S122) which would rid us of the personal income tax, the corporate income tax, the social security and medicare payroll taxes, all gift and estate taxes, and the IRS. It would impose, in place of all that, a point of retail sale only sales tax on goods and services sold within the United States!

You can find the specifics of either or both bills one at a time at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.php simply by selecting search by bill number and entering the bill number in the search box.

And you can read all the scholarly research you ever care to read on the bill at http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=view_research

[Oceander]

So, you must also be a believer in "girl's hair" and "boy's hair" - short hair being "boy's hair" and long hair being "girl's hair."

[Bigun]

So, you must also be a believer in "girl's hair" and "boy's hair" - short hair being "boy's hair" and long hair being "girl's hair."

I'm afraid you are going to have to explain that one to me as I'm having a hard time figuring out what it has to do with the subject at hand.

[Bigun]