6 ms·

> The emails are striking for what they lack: no counterproposals or efforts by IRS officials to push for a better deal. This alone should be grounds enough to

> The emails are striking for what they lack: no counterproposals or efforts by IRS officials to push for a better deal. This alone should be grounds enough to fire everyone involved for incompetence, even if corruption can't be proven.

seibelj 7y ago
You do realize this is the government right? No one ever gets fired unless they commit a felony while on the job, and even that is dicey.
- m463 7y ago
  I wonder what constitutes collusion?
  - briandear 7y ago
    Collusion isn’t a crime unless it’s done in order to commit a crime in which case it becomes a conspiracy.
ta0987 7y ago
Given the way Congress treats the Post Office, I wouldn't take it for granted that the IRS has much choice in the matter.
- gigatexal 7y ago
  I couldn’t agree more. If the TurboTax lobby has bought your vote what are you really going to do...
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Votes are only for sale when voters don't care about the issue. Politicians don't want money - they want power, when voters don't really care money buys ads and the like which translates into votes. Then voters care though no amount of money can buy off a "wrong" vote and they get voted out - lose their power.
mehrdadn 7y ago
Government jobs don't work like the private sector. Furthermore, it's not at all clear from this sentence that it's incompetence or corruption in the first place. It could be that they e.g. felt they might get a worse deal if they tried to push for a better one.
lazyguy2 7y ago
You'd have to fire all the people in the top positions of the Federal government. People want to eat yummy sausages, but they don't want to know how sausages are made. This is how sausages are made if you define 'sausages' as 'market regulation'.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  I don't eat shit sausage
- danShumway 7y ago
  People tolerate bad inputs when the outputs are good. They ignore the sausage-making process specifically because they don't want to give up the yummy sausage. But this particular sausage isn't yummy. It's gross, and the packaging is deceptively labeled, and it steals from veterans. If I was being handed a yummy sausage, I might not want to ask many questions. But this one smells funky; so now I want to know what's in it, and what went wrong cooking it, and I'm even thinking I might want to get my sausages made by someone else from now on.
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    To continue this analogy, the problem is that if you ignore how the yummy sausages are made you don't really know what is normal and what is off when you examine the process behind the rotten ones. People naively think the problems will be obvious. The issue at the heart of the analogy, though, is that those same people would find what they define as problems with the process for making the yummy ones. Thus, the "problems" are not as obvious as they think.
belltaco 7y ago
Huh, they're just following instructions from elected reps and the president, like they're required to by law. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/turbotax-h-r-block-spend-millions-lobbying-us-keep-doing-n736386 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/turbotax-h-r-block-sp... I don't think anyone is directly paying the IRS officials or corrupting them, they're paying lobbyists and donating to political campaigns. Intuit spends a LOT on lobbying, 6.6 million just in 1 year or something like that. If we fire everyone involved in the IRS, the new folks who go against the same political diktats will be fired by the President.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  As this is greyed out, are people saying that IRS are being directly courted by tax companies and it's not due to government control?
- pstuart 7y ago
  The current administration is corrupt to the core, so if it looks bad it probably is bad.
  - plurple 7y ago
    It’s not just this administration. The Lois Lerner fiasco happened during the previous administration. I think the IRS has been corrupt for a long time without any help. Ken Corbin, the person in charge of this filing nonsense, is a 27 year employee of the IRS.
    - torstenvl 7y ago
      Let's be perfectly clear: there was no Lois Lerner fiasco. A massive number of 501(c)(4) organizations started forming with (typically right-leaning) political names, despite the fact that 501(c)(4) organizations aren't allowed to operate as PACs, because "the net earnings of which [must be] devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes." 26 U.S.C. § 501(c)(4) available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/501 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/501. This phenomenon was much more common among Tea Party groups and libertarians (many of whom fundamentally dispute the legitimacy of the tax code) than among paleoconservatives, neoconservatives, or any brand of liberal or progressive. See generally Jᴀɴᴇ Mᴀʏᴇʀ, Dᴀʀᴋ Mᴏɴᴇʏ: Tʜᴇ Hɪᴅᴅᴇɴ Hɪsᴛᴏʀʏ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ Bɪʟʟɪᴏɴᴀɪʀᴇs Bᴇʜɪɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ Rɪsᴇ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ Rᴀᴅɪᴄᴀʟ Rɪɢʜᴛ (2016). Having a 501(c)(4) with a political term like "Tea Party" in the name is per se probable cause for an investigation. The ability to spin that into some kind of partisan witch hunt was a major propaganda victory. This was conduct by principally one side of the political spectrum, and the IRS had no more an obligation to treat the parties equally than the ATF does when investigating Second Amendment fringe groups or the DEA does when investigating head shops or the FBI does when investigating eco-terrorism. TLDR: If you don't want to be investigated for unlawfully using your non-profit for political purposes, maybe don't put political terms in the name of your non-profit.
techntoke 7y ago
Sounds like a whisleblower from the IRS needs to push for a false claims/Qui tam lawsuit.

seibelj 7y ago

You do realize this is the government right? No one ever gets fired unless they commit a felony while on the job, and even that is dicey.

m463 7y ago
I wonder what constitutes collusion?
- briandear 7y ago
  Collusion isn’t a crime unless it’s done in order to commit a crime in which case it becomes a conspiracy.

ta0987 7y ago

Given the way Congress treats the Post Office, I wouldn't take it for granted that the IRS has much choice in the matter.

gigatexal 7y ago
I couldn’t agree more. If the TurboTax lobby has bought your vote what are you really going to do...
- bluGill 7y ago
  Votes are only for sale when voters don't care about the issue. Politicians don't want money - they want power, when voters don't really care money buys ads and the like which translates into votes. Then voters care though no amount of money can buy off a "wrong" vote and they get voted out - lose their power.

mehrdadn 7y ago

Government jobs don't work like the private sector. Furthermore, it's not at all clear from this sentence that it's incompetence or corruption in the first place. It could be that they e.g. felt they might get a worse deal if they tried to push for a better one.

lazyguy2 7y ago

You'd have to fire all the people in the top positions of the Federal government. People want to eat yummy sausages, but they don't want to know how sausages are made. This is how sausages are made if you define 'sausages' as 'market regulation'.

hanniabu 7y ago
I don't eat shit sausage
danShumway 7y ago
People tolerate bad inputs when the outputs are good. They ignore the sausage-making process specifically because they don't want to give up the yummy sausage. But this particular sausage isn't yummy. It's gross, and the packaging is deceptively labeled, and it steals from veterans. If I was being handed a yummy sausage, I might not want to ask many questions. But this one smells funky; so now I want to know what's in it, and what went wrong cooking it, and I'm even thinking I might want to get my sausages made by someone else from now on.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  To continue this analogy, the problem is that if you ignore how the yummy sausages are made you don't really know what is normal and what is off when you examine the process behind the rotten ones. People naively think the problems will be obvious. The issue at the heart of the analogy, though, is that those same people would find what they define as problems with the process for making the yummy ones. Thus, the "problems" are not as obvious as they think.

belltaco 7y ago

Huh, they're just following instructions from elected reps and the president, like they're required to by law. https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/turbotax-h-r-block-spend-millions-lobbying-us-keep-doing-n736386 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/turbotax-h-r-block-sp... I don't think anyone is directly paying the IRS officials or corrupting them, they're paying lobbyists and donating to political campaigns. Intuit spends a LOT on lobbying, 6.6 million just in 1 year or something like that. If we fire everyone involved in the IRS, the new folks who go against the same political diktats will be fired by the President.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago
As this is greyed out, are people saying that IRS are being directly courted by tax companies and it's not due to government control?
pstuart 7y ago
The current administration is corrupt to the core, so if it looks bad it probably is bad.
- plurple 7y ago
  It’s not just this administration. The Lois Lerner fiasco happened during the previous administration. I think the IRS has been corrupt for a long time without any help. Ken Corbin, the person in charge of this filing nonsense, is a 27 year employee of the IRS.
  - torstenvl 7y ago
    Let's be perfectly clear: there was no Lois Lerner fiasco. A massive number of 501(c)(4) organizations started forming with (typically right-leaning) political names, despite the fact that 501(c)(4) organizations aren't allowed to operate as PACs, because "the net earnings of which [must be] devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes." 26 U.S.C. § 501(c)(4) available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/501 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/501. This phenomenon was much more common among Tea Party groups and libertarians (many of whom fundamentally dispute the legitimacy of the tax code) than among paleoconservatives, neoconservatives, or any brand of liberal or progressive. See generally Jᴀɴᴇ Mᴀʏᴇʀ, Dᴀʀᴋ Mᴏɴᴇʏ: Tʜᴇ Hɪᴅᴅᴇɴ Hɪsᴛᴏʀʏ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ Bɪʟʟɪᴏɴᴀɪʀᴇs Bᴇʜɪɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ Rɪsᴇ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ Rᴀᴅɪᴄᴀʟ Rɪɢʜᴛ (2016). Having a 501(c)(4) with a political term like "Tea Party" in the name is per se probable cause for an investigation. The ability to spin that into some kind of partisan witch hunt was a major propaganda victory. This was conduct by principally one side of the political spectrum, and the IRS had no more an obligation to treat the parties equally than the ATF does when investigating Second Amendment fringe groups or the DEA does when investigating head shops or the FBI does when investigating eco-terrorism. TLDR: If you don't want to be investigated for unlawfully using your non-profit for political purposes, maybe don't put political terms in the name of your non-profit.

techntoke 7y ago

Sounds like a whisleblower from the IRS needs to push for a false claims/Qui tam lawsuit.