The IRS Will Target You Next

So you think the IRS was weaponized under the Obama administration (think Lois Lerner)?  Thomas Gallatin at Patriot Post has more bad news for you:

Democrats aim to supercharge the agency
 to hit up the middle class for more tax revenue

Democrats are one vote away from weaponizing the Internal Revenue Service against the American middle class. With Joe Manchin doing an about-face on his opposition to Joe Biden’s Build Back Better spending binge, now reduced in scope and dubiously called the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRS is on the cusp of a windfall to the tune of $80 billion.

To put that in perspective, the IRS’s annual budget is $12.6 billion. The additional $80 billion would be spread out over the next nine years, with the predictable Washington selling point that this IRS “investment” will reap a projected $200 billion in additional tax revenue thanks to more accurate tax collection.

And where will the lion’s share of this “lost” tax revenue come from? Despite the Democrats’ favorite talking point of making the wealthy pay their “fair share,” the vast majority of the collected tax revenue will come from hard-working middle-class Americans. . . .

Read the rest here.

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The Infernal Revenue Service

 

Here’s Cal Thomas at Newsbusters on torture at tax time:

Thanks to the beneficence of the Internal Revenue Service -- and the fallout from COVID-19 -- we half of Americans who pay federal income taxes have been given until May 17 to file.

Since I began earning enough to file Form 1040 and associated forms, I have only known one person who prepared his own taxes. That was Bill Archer, a Texas Republican who formerly headed the House Ways and Means Committee. I once asked Archer why he prepared his. His reply was that not only did he think it was fun, but because he helped write the tax code, he felt a responsibility to demonstrate competence in filling out the forms.

These days, the forms are so complicated, hardly anyone I know understands them. The instructions need instructions.

I have again filed jointly with my wife (more than 70 pages). She owns a business, so it is more complicated than if we filed separately. Still, the forms require translating a language I have never studied and wouldn't want to. If you call the IRS and ask for help, you are still responsible for interest and penalties if they give the wrong advice.

How complicated is it? Here are just a few examples. Right off the top, I am threatened with prison should I knowingly fudge information on the form. The federal government does threats very well, including those read by flight attendants. Refuse to wear a mask, even if vaccinated, and you risk arrest. Don't even think of tampering with the smoke detector. Even the post office is now spying on us.

How's this for clarity from the estimated tax worksheet: "Add lines 2a and 2b. Subtract line 2c from line 1. Figure your tax on the amount on line 3 by using the 2021 Tax Tables. Caution: If you will have qualified dividends or a net capital gain or expect to exclude or deduct foreign earned income or housing, see worksheets 2-5 and 2-6 in Pub. 505 to figure the tax."

Got that?

There are schedules and forms for everything. They are nearly as numerous as the growing list of gender identities. Under Schedule D, Profits and Losses, there is this gibberish: "Totals for all short-term transactions reported on Form 1099-B for which basis was reported to the IRS and for which you have no adjustments (see instructions). However, if you choose to report all these transactions on Form 8949, leave this line blank and go to line 1b."

Say what?

No civilized society should force its citizens to go through this annual torture.

. . .

The rest is here.

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