Tag: Taxes

Categories
Congress GOP Taxation

WATCH Jake Tapper Humiliate A Republican For Lying About The IRS And Budget Deficit

CNN host Jake Tapper gave GOP Congressman Mike Johnson (LA) a lesson in basic economics and the need for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and wound up making the Republican look like a clueless dolt Tuesday on the network.

The bone of contention was legislation proposed by House Republicans that would not allow the IRS to fill 87,000 open jobs and would also increase the federal deficit.

Tapper began by noting:

“You supported the House bill we just discussed. It would rescind billions of dollars to the IRS. You tweeted, you will vote to ‘stop the 87,000 IRS agents from going after families’. That’s not true. It would be employees, not agents. The Congressional Budget Office says that your bill to get rid of those IRS employees is going to add to the deficit.”

Johnson replied:

“Only in the Bizarro World of Washington would you get an estimate that not spending the money is going to add to the deficit.”

Tapper pushed back:

“Because of enforcement more people who are avoiding paying their taxes. About ten years ago, if you made more than $10 million a year, one out of five people like that would be audited. Now it’s down to 3.6 percent. The wealthy people are getting away with not paying their taxes. Corporations too.”

Rather than admit Tapper was correct, Johnson decided to lie:

“The intent of hiring all of these new agents would have the effect of going after hard-working families and small businesses. That is not a Republican talking point. That comes from the Joint Committee on Taxation. When the Joint Committee on Taxation publishes something, it’s given a lot of weight. They’re nonpartisan.”

That’s when Tapper hit back by reminding the congressman:

“But I quoted the CBO, the CBO is nonpartisan too!”

Johnson:

“The CBO doesn’t have a lot of credibility right now. Their analysis is wildly inaccurate in a lot of ways and they don’t always do appropriate analysis.”

Tapper then asked the most important question:

“Do you think there’s a problem in this country of wealthy individuals and companies not paying their fair share in taxes?”

The congressman responded:

“That’s been a problem, of course, but it’s — we’re not preventing that. The IRS has an important job to go after tax cheats, absolutely, and we support that. We want these things to be done properly.”

But for it to be done properly requires IRS employees to do the work of tracking down tax cheats. Congressman Johnson and other Republicans say they want to stop tax fraud, but then they turn around the try to hamstring the IRS. As usual, they’re just grandstanding and using bullshit instead of facts.

Here’s the video:

Categories
Congress GOP

Lauren Boebert Gets Reprimanded By House Democrat For Her ‘Fabricated’ Rant About The IRS

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) got taken to the proverbial woodshed Friday during debate on legislation that would deal with climate change and taxation after Boebert began spinning wild conspiracy theories and lies about the bill in question.

During her speech on the House floor regarding the Inflation Reduction Act, Boebert incorrectly asserted that Democrats were intent on “making the IRS, with armed agents, larger than the Pentagon.”

She added:

“This bill hires 87,000 new IRS agents and they are armed and the job description tells them that they need to be required to carry a firearm and expect to use deadly force if necessary!”

But as the Washington Post reports, Boebert and many of her GOP colleagues are lying about the bill:

Natasha Sarin, Treasury counselor for tax policy and implementation, told The Fact Checker that over half of the IRS staff — 50,000 — is eligible for retirement in the next five years. Much of the funding for new employees will be focused on mitigating that attrition and adding customer service and information technology specialists in addition to enforcement agents. The agency has also lost about 40 percent of the agency staff who specialize in complex tax audits, bringing it to the level of the agency in World War II, she said.

In any case, the 87,000 figure is wildly exaggerated. These people are not all new tax agents.

Democratic Congressman John Yarmuth of Kentucky also laid an instant fact-check and reprimand on Boebert:

“I will say in response to the gentlewoman from Colorado, this is typical of what the Republicans are doing. First of all, they’re making up numbers. There’s nowhere anywhere that says 87,000 new IRS agents will be hired in this bill. That’s a totally fabricated number. And the idea that they’re armed — I know Mrs. Boebert would like everyone to be armed as they are in her restaurant, but that’s not what IRS agents do. I would implore my Republican colleagues to… cut out the scare tactics.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=2nlqdcWtTT4&feature=emb_logo

Categories
GOP Whining Taxation U.S. Senate

WATCH Sen. Blumenthal Shut Down ‘Preposterous’ Lindsey Graham For Lying About The IRS And Taxes

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) had more than enough of South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham’s lies Sunday and shut him down during a joint appearance the two made on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The two senators were invited on to discuss the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which is on the verge of passing in the U.S. Senate, even though Graham says he won’t support the legislation no matter how amendments are added or changes made, and tried to raise the specter that adding more IRS agents would lead to some sort of tax Gestapo, remarking:

“Hiring 86,000 more IRS agents, if that makes you feel better, you missed a lot. They’re coming after waitresses and Uber drivers and everybody else to collect more taxes. So if you think growing the IRS is good for you, you’re wrong.”

Host Dana Bash asked Blumenthal if he wanted to reply to his colleague, and he took her up on the offer:

“I think the IRS is going to target the highest income Americans. As the saying goes, that’s where the money is, that’s where they’re going to look to collect.”

He then added:

“The idea there’s going to be this army of IRS agents descending on the average Americans is preposterous. Tax fairness is what we need. For the biggest corporations in this country to pay no taxes, for them to do stock buybacks that benefit the shareholders? For example in the case of oil companies, they are making three to four times they did last year. What are they doing with those excess windfall profits? Lowering gasoline prices? No, they are doing stock buybacks and they ought to pay a tax on it.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noDO3M-blwk&feature=emb_logo

Poor Lindsey! He can’t admit that the real reason he won’t support cracking down on rich tax cheats is because those same crooks are major contributors to his campaign.

Good on Sen. Blumenthal for calling Graham out and shutting him down. The last thing we need more of is GOP bullshit and excuses.

Categories
Donald Trump Joe Biden Taxation

White House Throws Major Shade At Trump With Statement On Release Of Joe Biden’s 2020 Tax Return

Monday was officially Tax Day for American taxpayers. Millions of us had to make sure we got our returns into the IRS before the midnight deadline.

As you might expect, the tax deadline also applies to the president of the United States, but during the Trump administration there was a running joke that even if the Donald did actually file a return, he probably did so under protest and may have even taken Internal Revenue to court in order to avoid having to fork over the money.

That’s what makes the statement from the Biden administration regarding the current president’s tax returns even more brilliant in the way it’s clearly meant to throw some epic shade at the previous head of state. Just take a look at this:

Now THAT’S what you call professional trolling, and it was an enormous hit on social media, where you could almost hear people standing and applauding:

https://twitter.com/boley_baxton/status/1394412133916495872?s=20

https://twitter.com/softsoulcomplex/status/1394418575289556992?s=20

Kudos to the White House. Well done.