More Lawlessness From The IRS

4. Stop the Lawlessness;
IRS Agents Not Paying Their Taxes

by Herman Cain: Almost 1,600 of their employees willfully failed to pay taxes, and many kept their jobs anyway.

Did it surprise you when the news came out on Friday that 1,580 IRS employees have willfully neglected to pay their taxes over the past 10 years? Keep in mind that the “willfully” crowd is just a drop in the bucket at the IRS, where more than 18,000 employees were delinquent on their taxes at one time or another, but only the 1,580 in question were tabbed as having intentionally failed to pay.

By the way, more than half of the willful delinquents kept their jobs. That’s in direct violation of the law, which says that IRS employees who willfully neglect to pay their taxes must be fired. But since when does the IRS follow the law?

Indeed, the most noteworthy thing about this story is that most people don’t find it all that noteworthy. It’s hardly even news anymore that the IRS is a lawless organization, what with the agency targeting conservative groups for delays and denials of their exemption applications, only to have the erstwhile head of that agency – Lois Lerner – plead the Fifth Amendment rather than answer questions about it.

But that doesn’t mean she did anything wrong, she and her lawyers assure us! Actually it does mean that because the Fifth Amendment’s one and only purpose is to protect you from having to incriminate yourself in testimony. Pleading the Fifth is simply your way of telling investigators or a court, “You’re going to have to prove I did it. I’m not going to help you by answering questions.”

It’s a perfectly legitimate exercise of one’s constitutional rights. But to pretend it doesn’t indicate you did anything wrong is absurd.

It would be a problem if any federal agency operated in a lawless manner, but it’s especially troubling when the IRS does it because the IRS has almost unlimited power to harass U.S. citizens. The IRS can exercise complete discretion when it comes to who will be subject to an audit. And I can tell you all about that. Not long after I challenged President Bill Clinton on national television concerning the details of HillaryCare, I was subjected to a long, drawn-out IRS audit that ultimately showed I did nothing wrong, but nevertheless cost me a lot of money in attorney and accountant fees, not to mention my time when I needed to focus on my job as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza.

Am I saying that they target the political opponents of their bosses in Washington? You’re darn right they do! And we already know that they’ve targeted Tea Party groups and pro-Israel groups for delays and denials of their exemption applications.

People think it’s over the top to compare the IRS to the Gestapo, but when an agency can simply invade your entire financial life just because it feels like it – tying you up for months on end and demanding basically anything it wants – please explain to me the difference between the two. Your only check on the power of an agency like that is its own willingness to operate within the law, or the resolve of Congress to make sure it does.

This is one reason I’m glad to see Sen. David Perdue and other congressional colleagues bringing forth a new bill to institute the FairTax, which would be a national sales tax to replace the entire U.S. tax code. If it passed, individuals would no longer pay taxes directly to the federal government and there would no longer be any rationale for the IRS to audit or otherwise harass anyone. In addition to being good policy because it taxes consumption rather than income, production or savings, the FairTax would take away the power of an agency that is lawless and out of control.

If this story doesn’t demonstrate that, I don’t know what would.
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Herman Cain is a conservative radio host of CainTV, a 2012 GOP presidential primary candidate with over 40 years of experience in the private sector as an analyst for Coca-Cola, an executive at Pillsbury, a regional Vice President for Burger King, and CEO of Godfather's Pizza. Cain served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and a supervisory mathematician for the Dept. of the Navy.

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Tags: Herman Cain, conservative commentator, CainTV, IRS lawlessness, TRA Agents, not paying their taxes,  FairTax To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!