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The key word is "income". The legal definition of "income" might not be what most people think. Once a term is used in the Constitution, only the Supreme Court can define it. Not congress. Not HR Block. Not even the IRS.
That's not really how it works. SCOTUS doesn't define anything. They offer an opinion on whether the definitions in laws and regulations are Constitutional. To date, SCOTUS has agreed with the laws and the IRS regulations and interpretations on the definition of income.
And how many people have attempted murder on an IRS agent?
You might be surprised how many times IRS staff is threatened with violence. A friend worked as an IRS Revenue Agent some years back. That's the IRS staff that go to businesses and homes to seize property when the taxpayer has declined to pay what they owe, often after a court case or after months of trying to work with the taxpayer. Revenue agents are unarmed. On several occasions, my friend was threatened with violence or had a weapon pointed at him. He would leave at that point. Later in the day, he would return with IRS CI agents, who are armed, and the taxpayer would not only have their property seized, but would also be arrested and charged with violating whatever crime applies to threatening an IRS Revenue agent.
You might be surprised how many times IRS staff is threatened with violence. A friend worked as an IRS Revenue Agent some years back. That's the IRS staff that go to businesses and homes to seize property when the taxpayer has declined to pay what they owe, often after a court case or after months of trying to work with the taxpayer. Revenue agents are unarmed. On several occasions, my friend was threatened with violence or had a weapon pointed at him. He would leave at that point. Later in the day, he would return with IRS CI agents, who are armed, and the taxpayer would not only have their property seized, but would also be arrested and charged with violating whatever crime applies to threatening an IRS Revenue agent.
So don't send IRS agents to do the job of the police.
If someone has committed an actual crime ... arrest them for it.
Oh, and btw, this might be a bit premature, but the article I quoted above also gives the following advice, QUOTE:
"If you are approached and questioned by a Special Agent, ask for his or her business card. Firmly but politely state that you do not want to answer any questions and that you will have your attorney contact the Special Agent. You can fully cooperate through your attorney. This may sound paranoid, but given the fluid nature of who is a witness and who is a target, even statements you think sound innocent may not be. Suppose you are asked whether you do business with Joe or know Sally. If you answer falsely, you may face felony charges. See 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001. Plus, making a false statement can be considered evidence of an attempt to conceal other criminal conduct." [end quote]
So it seems that IRS agents might now be put into the exact same category as any other law enforcement agents? Will they start giving people their Miranda rights before they interrogate them?
Anyway, this is just one MORE reason that I am glad that I am now retired and my returns are very simple and straightforward -- but, then, they almost always have been.
When I was involved in the IRS' Union for a few years, I sat in several interview meetings where the Miranda rights were given to employees. Since I am not a lawyer, I advised the employee to not talk and to get a lawyer before proceeding. One case was lying under oath to a federal officer, another was illegally accessing tax information for personal gain.
At that time (more than 10 years ago) the agents had guns in a safe in their office. They assisted federal and local police if support was needed.
And how many people have attempted murder on an IRS agent?
I'm sure quite a few but the public just isn't aware of. I was watching a crime show the other day and some health inspectors were murdered by a food factory owner after their inspection because they threatened to shut down the factory. All it takes is on incident like this for agents to be armed. Do you really think that not wanting to pay thousands of dollars of taxes to the government isn't enough motive to shoot someone?
So don't send IRS agents to do the job of the police.
If someone has committed an actual crime ... arrest them for it.
You have no understanding of the law. You aren't automatically arrested and thrown in prison for anything related to the IRS, so a cop isn't warranted for every situation. Do you want an armed cop at your door if you didn't pay all your taxes last year? An IRS agent would be armed if under the rare occasion a crazy right wing anti tax lunatic tried to kill or harm an agent for doing their job.
Anyone that has a lick of common sense knew this would be coming due to the ever increasing number of people peddling drugs and stolen goods for cash. The new armed IRS agents will have local LEO's with them as they visit homes and businesses to seize their stash of cash.
It also appears that the IRS has finally gotten around to firing all of their deadbeat employees that were answering the telephones. They were too lazy to direct your call to the correct extension and instead directed the calls to each other until one placed you on hold for awhile before disconnecting the call. So you called again to repeat the process or get lucky to have someone in the wrong department answer and redirect your call. Now you get the recording "all lines are busy, try again later" so you keep trying until you get a ring.
The IRS also had a major problem with lazy employees that were assigned to inspect tax returns for one reason or another only to delete the work assignment later if it was too difficult or time consuming to bother with. Doing that erase the work order number, who assigned it, who was to do it and the entire tax return if they didn't remove the EIN or SS# of the filer. That also deleted any record of what the filer paid into SSI-Medicare, withholding tax and tax payments. I had that happen to me in 2002 when someone deleted my tax returns for 1997, 1998 and 1999 when investigating why I received tax refund checks by error for those years in 2001. Had it happen a second time in 2010 when someone deleted my tax returns from 2001 thru 2006 after challenging IRS claims of not reporting income for 2007 and 2008. Turned out that a general contractor I quit doing work for in 2006 sent in bogus 1099's in 2007 and 2008 showing I was paid around $45,000 for each year. That was easy for me to disprove since my income dropped dramatically in 2007 due to illness and quit working altogether in 2008 after it became much worse. I discovered the deletions in the annual letter sent out by the SSA that showed your contributions for each year and what to expect to get if you stopped working. Was quite a surprise to see zeros on lines that once listed thousands of dollars. Was also surprised when the IRS, tax lawyers and my banker said I was SOL if I tried taking the IRS to court to have that corrected. They said the department hates to admit to making mistakes so makes it too costly for most people to take them on in court. I was still recovering when I reached retirement age so now don't get squat in retirement benefits since they erased 9 out of the 11 years where I paid in the highest amount of contributions to the SSA.
I was just reading an article about the "defund the police" movement that's been taking place the past couple years. Also, recently reading articles about the "Inflation Reduction Act" which of course includes massive new funding for the hiring of 87,000 new IRS agents, and many who will need to be willing/mandated to carry a gun.
And then it came to me....the same Democratic party politicians that were predominately the supporters of the "Defund the Police" movement....are also many of the same ones who now overwhelmingly support (and voted for) the hiring of these additional 87,000 IRS agents.
Now tell me how the logic works here. If their thought process was that less armed police enforcement would result in less crime....wouldn't the same logic apply to the IRS agents? If you use the same logic, LESS funding of the IRS would REDUCE tax cheating...no? If the goal is less tax cheating....using their former logic, they need to defund the IRS. Yet....suddenly, they now believe that more funding, for additional IRS agents (some armed with those "evil" guns no less) is necessary to reduce tax cheating. You can't make this stuff up.....
My head is spinning. One set of thoughts follows logic, one doesn't. Guess which one?
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