Freedom Line Blog

Apparently, that’s the case since the current version of ObamaCare doesn’t allow the IRS to exercise its usual methods of coercing compliance, like imposing tax liens or levies, seizing property or seeking jail time against delinquent taxpayers.  But don’t rest too easy.  Since health care is now a federal “right,” you can bet on the good folks in Washington, D.C., conjuring up amendments to guarantee that you and every other American citizen will enjoy it to the fullest extent the law requires.

H/T: USA Today

It’s April 15th – the date that millions of Americans who waited till the last possible day to file their tax forms with the IRS can wait no longer to feed the insatiable appetite of federal (and state) tax coffers.  If you are like most of us, you try to struggle through the filing yourself — coffee and documentation at the ready — ultimately giving up and hiring an accountant, a tax-filing firm or downloading an online program.  In any event, it is an annual chore.  A monumental pain.  And an expensive one, at that — especially if you get it wrong and end up owing penalties.  Well, guess what, fellow tax-payers?  You are not alone!

The Hill newspaper reports that “few members of Congress prepare their annual tax returns, instead relying on professional preparers…”  The article details how even Ways and Means Committee members — the very ones responsible for writing the tax code — need professional help to file their annual taxes. Of the 28 respondents, only one — Got that? One — Member of Congress said he did his returns by himself (and he was an accountant for 12 years).

During an interview on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” program back in January, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman announced that he doesn’t prepare his own tax returns either.  Why?  Because, at least in part, he finds the tax code to be “too complex” to prepare them himself.

If that is not a case for tax reform, we defy you to find a better one.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Americans who love the IRS are giddy with excitement over the pending Sunday House vote on ObamaCare, because enforcement of its mandates will be delegated to the agency. 

Don’t have government-approved health insurance?  The IRS will help you get some.  Now. 

Not paying your fine for not having government-approved health insurance?  The IRS will take it.  Don’t have it?  Hey, the IRS knows how to seize assets and sell them.  What do you mean you “need your car to get to work?”

Not paying the additional taxes on capital gains imposed by the bill?  Who do you think you are,  Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner?

Can’t understand why you must pay the additional taxes now and only get those awesome promised benefits some years down the road?  Take it up with the President.  Maybe he’ll read your letter on TV.  The IRS is just the new national health care police force.  It just does what it’s told to do, not make policy.  You better do the same.

Think the IRS is not going to have the manpower and money to find you and fine you?  Think again, meathead.  Ten billion dollars in new funding and almost 17,000 in new enforcers will take care of that.

Think you can plead illness and hide out in the hospital?  Well, maybe yours will be one of the very few that can afford to take new patients.

Think it’ll help to take your meds before your visit with the IRS?  Might ought to get your prescription soon, because your doctor is leaving to practice in Indonesia.

In a public relations effort to build even greater support for its new duties, the IRS is considering a national public school contest to help design the imposing new uniforms it will need to make sure its authority is understood.  To simplify the contest, the uniform color has already been chosen:  brown.

Although no final decision has yet been made for the new IRS slogan, we are hearing that “resistance is futile” is the most popular choice at the moment.

The Commissioner of the IRS doesn’t even do his own taxes.   After all, the Tax Code is large, incomprehensible and it takes days to prepare a detailed return.

As IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told C-SPAN this weekend, “I’ve used one [tax preparer] for years.  I find it convenient.  I find the tax code complex so I use a preparer.”

Thanks for those words of hope Commissioner Shulman.  If you can’t do your own taxes, maybe it’s time to hold off on the thousands of regulations that the IRS issues every year.

Not surprisingly, even members of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee use a “professional” to complete their tax returns.  Nobody in Washington, D.C. appears to know what’s going on with our Tax Code.  That’s not surprising at all.