GOP Congressman introduces "The Dog Ate My Taxes" bill legalizing dumb excuses to IRS

[Little-Acorn]

The IRS has been announcinng that one employee under suspicion after another has had hard-disk crashes, that has deleted emails from the critical period under Congressioal investigation. Many people have pointed out that if you ever get audited by the IRS and they demand all your receipts and records, the "computer crash" excuse would be found unacceptable by that same IRS that's using it now to Congress.

A Texas congressman now proposes to redress that inequity. Steve Stockman (R-TX) has introduced the "Dog Ate My Taxes" bill, making it legal for cittizens to offfer comploetely lame excuses to the IRS when he doesn't want to give them the information they are demanding.

It may be tongue-in-cheek, but it's HIGHLY appropriate.

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http://stockman.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/stockman-bill-allows-taxpayers-to-use-same-lame-excuses-as-irs

Stockman bill allows taxpayers to use same lame excuses as IRS

Jun 20, 2014

WASHINGTON -- Taxpayers who do not produce documents for the Internal Revenue Service will be able to offer a variety of dubious excuses under legislation introduced by Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX 36) a week after the IRS offered an incredibly dubious excuse for its failure to turn documents over to House investigators.

“The United States was founded on the belief government is subservient and accountable to the people. Taxpayers shouldn’t be expected to follow laws the Obama administration refuses to follow themselves,” said Stockman. “Taxpayers should be allowed to offer the same flimsy, obviously made-up excuses the Obama administration uses.”

Under Stockman’s bill, “The Dog Ate My Tax Receipts Act,” taxpayers who do not provide documents requested by the IRS can claim one of the following reasons:

1. The dog ate my tax receipts
2. Convenient, unexplained, miscellaneous computer malfunction
3. Traded documents for five terrorists
4. Burned for warmth while lost in the Yukon
5. Left on table in Hillary’s Book Room
6. Received water damage in the trunk of Ted Kennedy’s car
7. Forgot in gun case sold to Mexican drug lords
8. Forced to recycle by municipal Green Czar
9. Was short on toilet paper while camping
10. At this point, what difference does it make?

Stockman’s bill comes a week after the IRS refused to turn over to House investigators emails from former Exempt Organizations Divison director Lois Lerner that would implicate agency personnel in illegal targeting of citizens critical of President Barack Obama.

The IRS claimed a “computer glitch” has erased the hard drives of all incriminating evidence. The IRS further claimed the hard drives are not available for forensic investigation as they had just been destroyed for recycling.

[Kathianne]

There is a good chance that this scandal marks the end of Obama's presidency. It may not be the one that is the worst or even hurt the most people, but it involves the IRS, the only department of the US Gov't that can terrorize all:

http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/22/irs-cancelled-contract-with-email-storage-firm-weeks-after-lerners-computer-crash/


The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cancelled its longtime relationship with an email-storage contractor just weeks after ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer crashed and shortly before other IRS officials’ computers allegedly crashed.The IRS signed a contract with Sonasoft (http://www.sonasoft.com/), an email-archiving company based in San Jose, California, each year (http://government-contracts.findthebest.com/?launch_filters=title_field%3A%3A%3A%2A%3A%22sonas oft%3AKV&sort=__WEIGHT:DESC) from 2005 to 2010. The company, which partners with Microsoft and counts The New York Times among its clients, claims in its company slogans that it provides “Email Archiving Done Right” and “Point-Click Recovery.” Sonasoft in 2009 tweeted, “If the IRS uses Sonasoft products to backup their servers why wouldn’t you choose them to protect your servers?”
Sonasoft was providing “automatic data processing” services for the IRS throughout the January 2009 to April 2011 period in which Lerner sent her missing emails.
But Sonasoft’s six-year business relationship with the IRS came to an abrupt end at the close of fiscal year 2011, as congressional investigators began looking into the IRS conservative targeting scandal and IRS employees’ computers started crashing left and right.
Sonasoft’s fiscal year 2011 contract with the IRS ended on August 31, 2011. Eight days later, the IRS officially closed out its relationship with Sonasoft (http://www.fedspending.org/fpds/fpds.php?fiscal_year=2011&company_name=SONASOFT+CORP.&sortp=r&datype=T&reptype=r&database=fpds&detail=4&submit=GO) in accordance with the federal government’s contract close-out guidelines, which require agencies to fully audit their contracts and to get back any money that wasn’t used by the contractor. Curiously, the IRS de-allocated 36 cents when it closed out its contract with Sonasoft on September 8, 2011.
Lois Lerner’s computer allegedly crashed in June 2011 (http://online.wsj.com/articles/kim-strassel-about-those-missing-emails-1403220814), just ten days after House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Dave Camp first wrote a letter asking if the IRS was engaging in targeting of nonprofit groups. Two months later, Sonasoft’s contract ended and the IRS gave its email-archiving contractor the boot.
IRS official and frequent White House visitor Nikole Flax allegedly suffered her own computer crash in December 2011, three months after the IRS ended its relationship with Sonasoft...

[Kathianne]

Here's what I mean. If the IRS becomes suspect, which they are, and it's not addressed, people will stop bowing down to the tax man. Remember tar and feathers?

http://www.taxanalysts.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-9L8366?OpenDocument


Lois Lerner, the former IRS official who is at the center of the controversy over the agency’s abusive treatment of conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status, returned to center stage this week when it was revealed thattwo years’ worth of e-mails (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/lois-lerner-irs-email-computer-crash-107925.html?hp=r1) sent to and from her were “lost.”

So, do we have a coverup at the IRS? Has a crime been committed? I don’t know. What I do know is that I am deeply disturbed by all this.

Maybe it’s just sloppy record-keeping, which would be bad enough. Most of the government’s business is now conducted digitally, and those records need to be properly handled. Or is it worse? Is the IRS deliberately keeping things from the public? Excuse my cynicism, but the IRS’s penchant for secrecy is what led Tax Analysts, using the new Freedom of Information Act, to sue the agency in the 1970s to force it to release private letter rulings. There have been several subsequent lawsuits to pry records that should have been public out of the agency’s hands.

Several years ago, one of those lawsuits involved the IRS’s refusal to disclose internal guidance e-mailed to its field personnel. The principle driving that litigation was that taxpayers had the right to know what kind of instruction was being handed down internally by the IRS. Some might say that the e-mails now being made public as chief counsel advice are mostly “crap.” But that’s not the point; it was the principle of transparent government that was the point. And, accepting for the sake of argument that most of what’s being released in this e-mail category is not very useful, if the IRS was willing to force Tax Analysts to take the issue of those e-mails to four federal judges – all of whom ruled against the government -- what would it do when it came to something IRS officials thought was really important? Just saying.

Interestingly, in that case, the IRS complained that it was a great hardship to have to go through the tons of stored e-mails it had in order to comply with the court’s ruling. It didn’t seem to have a problem with losing e-mails in that case.

But the real problem here is that the IRS can’t make this story go away, and that starts smelling like a coverup. I know tax professionals who are now starting to think the worst and who are having trouble getting behind the IRS. And I am one of them.

The last time the IRS was in big trouble was after a disastrous 1985 filing season. What is happening here is starting to look much worse than that.

In 1986 President Reagan appointed a new IRS commissioner, Lawrence B. Gibbs, who turned the agency around. I recently sat down with Mr. Gibbs to discuss the IRS. Mr. Gibbs was, quite simply, an outstanding IRS commissioner, and he continues to be an outstanding tax professional. (He currently serves on the Tax Analysts board of directors.) The timing of our thirty minute conversation couldn’t have been more opportune given what is going on now. You can see the video of our discussion here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axY9r_FUGiE). I highly recommend it.

The exempt organization issue is now more than just fodder for conservative blogs. The IRS and the Treasury Department need to start being square with the American people and their Congress. Even if you hate the IRS -- and I do not -- a wounded and compromised tax collector (whether or not most of its wounds are self-inflicted) does no good for the country.

[Little-Acorn]

There is a good chance that this scandal marks the end of Obama's presidency. It may not be the one that is the worst or even hurt the most people, but it involves the IRS, the only department of the US Gov't that can terrorize all:

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cancelled its longtime relationship with an email-storage contractor just weeks after ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer crashed and shortly before other IRS officials’ computers allegedly crashed.The IRS signed a contract with Sonasoft, an email-archiving company based in San Jose, California, each year from 2005 to 2010.

The company, which partners with Microsoft and counts The New York Times among its clients, claims in its company slogans that it provides “Email Archiving Done Right” and “Point-Click Recovery.” Sonasoft in 2009 tweeted, “If the IRS uses Sonasoft products to backup their servers why wouldn’t you choose them to protect your servers?”

Sonasoft was providing “automatic data processing” services for the IRS throughout the January 2009 to April 2011 period in which Lerner sent her missing emails.

But Sonasoft’s six-year business relationship with the IRS came to an abrupt end at the close of fiscal year 2011, as congressional investigators began looking into the IRS conservative targeting scandal and IRS employees’ computers started crashing left and right.

Sonasoft’s fiscal year 2011 contract with the IRS ended on August 31, 2011. Eight days later, the IRS officially closed out its relationship with Sonasoft in accordance with the federal government’s contract close-out guidelines, which require agencies to fully audit their contracts and to get back any money that wasn’t used by the contractor. Curiously, the IRS de-allocated 36 cents when it closed out its contract with Sonasoft on September 8, 2011.

Lois Lerner’s computer allegedly crashed in June 2011, just ten days after House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Dave Camp first wrote a letter asking if the IRS was engaging in targeting of nonprofit groups. Two months later, Sonasoft’s contract ended and the IRS gave its email-archiving contractor the boot.

IRS official and frequent White House visitor Nikole Flax allegedly suffered her own computer crash in December 2011, three months after the IRS ended its relationship with Sonasoft...

http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/22/irs-cancelled-contract-with-email-storage-firm-weeks-after-lerners-computer-crash/

I can see the reversal coming, even now.

"Gee, Mr. Congressional investigator, sir, the reason we dropped Sonasoft right then, is because we found out they weren't archiving Lois Lerner's emails after all. We found that out after her hard drive crashed, we askled Sonasoft to provide the backups they had made, and they said there weren't any, Mr. Congressional investigator, sir."

So now the missing emails are all Sonasoft's fault. Not a smidgen of corruption from anyone in the governmentt.

You heard it here first.

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

There is a good chance that this scandal marks the end of Obama's presidency. It may not be the one that is the worst or even hurt the most people, but it involves the IRS, the only department of the US Gov't that can terrorize all:

http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/22/irs-cancelled-contract-with-email-storage-firm-weeks-after-lerners-computer-crash/

It is a government entity that attacked not just freedom of speech, voting rights but the very most important part of our Constitutionally based Republic and that is the citizen's right to criticize it's President and his party.. Additionally it actively suppressed the fairness and results of a coming Presidential election!!
It was nothing less than treason....
And simply must be addressed and remedied by justice being truly served and the guilty heads rolling!!!! Justice is blind so which heads roll is not an issue. We all know which one this massive huge and illegal conspiracy to cover up a previous conspiracy attempts to protect!!
The same lying, traitorous scum it all served to keep in power!!!-Tyr