{"id":25835,"date":"2021-06-18T16:38:30","date_gmt":"2021-06-18T20:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=25835"},"modified":"2021-06-18T16:40:30","modified_gmt":"2021-06-18T20:40:30","slug":"propublica-irs-leak-theres-no-underlying-there-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/25835\/propublica-irs-leak-theres-no-underlying-there-there\/","title":{"rendered":"ProPublica\/IRS Leak: There’s No Underlying “There” There"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our Liberty Update this week, we highlight the latest illegal leak<\/a> of thousands of supposedly confidential Internal Revenue Service (IRS) taxpayer returns spanning over 15 years, confirming that the partisan and power-hungry IRS simply cannot be trusted to safeguard our sensitive records, let alone to begin collecting sensitive private information from nonprofit organizations on donors who contribute to them in violation of the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

Getting to the substance of the ProPublica\/IRS leaked documents themselves, former Senator Phil Gramm and U.S. Policy Metrics partner Mike Solon explain<\/a> in The Wall Street Journal<\/em> how there’s nothing scandalous in the least in what they reveal:<\/p>\n

ProPublica\u2019s ‘blockbuster’ story showing that the wealthy ‘pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year, looks at first like a stunning revelation.\u00a0 But the whole tempest plops into a teapot once you ask yourself:\u00a0 How much of the total growth in the value of my home, retirement funds and business did I pay federal income taxes on last year?\u00a0 The answer is none.\u00a0 Nobody pays federal wealth taxes in America, but ProPublica and its Democratic allies are using stolen tax returns to try to change that.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As they correctly conclude, suddenly imposing a nonsensical “wealth tax” would not only be unfair, but destructive:<\/p>\n

Proponents of a federal property tax on wealth offer guarantees and protections that they will only tax the superrich like Mr. Buffett, promising not to touch your retirement plan, home, farm or business.\u00a0 But the federal income tax started out only taxing the superrich like John D. Rockefeller.\u00a0 The same politicians who promise to protect you from the federal wealth tax voted to impose income taxes on ‘wealthy’ Social Security retirees with an annual incomes above $25,000.\u00a0 And these are the same politicians who are proposing to tax your businesses and farms at 43.4% when you die, before they take another 40% in death taxes.\u00a0 In taxing wealth we eat the nation\u2019s seed corn.\u00a0 That may be worth it to politicians who want power, but for most Americans a wealth tax, whether they have wealth or not, would mean fewer jobs, lower wages and less opportunity for human flourishing.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our Liberty Update this week, we highlight the latest illegal leak of thousands of supposedly confidential Internal Revenue Service (IRS) taxpayer returns spanning over 15 years, confirming that the partisan and power-hungry IRS simply cannot be trusted to safeguard our sensitive records, let alone to begin collecting sensitive private information from nonprofit organizations on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4872,716,2464,735,5031,71],"class_list":["post-25835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-donor-privacy","tag-first-amendment","tag-internal-revenue-service","tag-irs","tag-schedule-b","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25835"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25838,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25835\/revisions\/25838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}