{"id":1530539,"date":"2025-04-15T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T00:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1530539"},"modified":"2025-04-15T20:20:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T00:20:00","slug":"on-tax-day-never-forget-irs-culture-bingo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/on-tax-day-never-forget-irs-culture-bingo\/1530539\/","title":{"rendered":"On Tax Day, Never Forget IRS Culture Bingo"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tax Day, Never Forget IRS Culture Bingo<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Submitted by Jim Bovard<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

On Tax Day, politicians and mainstream media will hector Americans to be grateful for the opportunity to pay their taxes. The Internal Revenue Service website touts a moth-eaten quote from a dead Supreme Court Justice: \u201cTaxes are what we pay for civilized society<\/a>.\u201d But recent history is the best antidote to groveling in gratitude to the federal agency that commandeers a lion\u2019s share of your income.<\/p>\n

The smiley face IRS should have been banished forever after revelations in the years before the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n

Former IRS district chief David Patnoe observed in 1998, \u201cMore tax is collected by fear and intimidation than by the law. People are afraid of the IRS.\u201d<\/strong> In 1996, an IRS instructor in the Arkansas-Oklahoma district was caught on videotape lecturing collection agents on how to treat taxpayers:<\/p>\n

\u201cMake them cry. We don\u2019t give points around here for being good scouts. The word is enforced<\/strong>. If that\u2019s not tattooed on your forehead, or somewhere else, then you need to get it. Enforcement. Seizure and sales. That\u2019s our mind set\u2026If you\u2019ve got an assessment, enforce collection until they come to their knees<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

One confidential IRS document uncovered in 1997 revealed that IRS auditors in the San Francisco region were expected to assess at least $1,012 in additional taxes for each hour they spend auditing a taxpayer\u2019s return. IRS revenue officers ignored regulations and guidelines before seizing property. In one case in the Arkansas-Oklahoma region, the only effort an IRS agent made before confiscating two cars \u201cconsisted of driving to the taxpayer\u2019s house, honking his car horn, and noting that no one came out of the house in response,\u201d according to an IRS audit.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

IRS agents have been indoctrinated to see taxpayers as a class enemy. This attitude is epitomized by \u201cCulture Bingo,\u201d a game used to train IRS agents and auditors<\/strong>. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants complained that Culture Bingo and other \u201ceconomic reality training modules\u201d encouraged examiners to think the worst of taxpayers<\/strong>. Culture Bingo sought to help employees recognize \u201can IRS organizational culture regarding the audit process.\u201d The game encouraged IRS agents to recognize or practice the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cI use summons to get third party records.\u201d
\n\t\u201cFraud referrals help an examiner get promoted.\u201d
\n\t\u201cTaxpayers can skim $20,000 and we\u2019ll never find it.\u201d
\n\t\u201cMost taxpayers deposit unreported receipts in their bank accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n

After an IRS agent got enough other agents in the class to sign onto his \u201cbingo\u201d card, he shouted out \u201cI\u2019ve got culture!\u201d and the class launched into a discussion of the reasons why these beliefs and practices were true and necessary. One of the most damning \u201clessons\u201d of the training was the doctrine, \u201cTaxpayers seem to live better than I do.\u201d<\/strong> The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants said of the course materials, \u201cEvery ethical issue presented finds the ethical result to be pro-IRS and anti-taxpayer. There is not one scenario where an IRS agent might act unethically against a taxpayer\u2019s interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Culture Bingo was especially perilous to IRS targets because IRS auditors sometimes simply make up income\u2014and then demand that the person pay additional taxes based on the IRS allegation. Bruce Strauss, a private tax preparer who worked for IRS collections for over thirty years, testified to Congress, \u201cThe IRS now has the authority to assign additional income to a taxpayer at its discretion, without any basis in fact.\u201d Any IRS assertion about a person\u2019s income\u2014even if there is no evidence to support it\u2014automatically receives a presumption of correctness in the Tax Court and in federal district courts<\/strong>. The IRS can impose crushing legal costs on someone merely by asserting that they owe an extra\u00a0\u00a0$10,000 in income\u2014which the person then must fight and disprove in court.<\/p>\n

The federal tax code creates far more pitfalls than Americans realize. During Mark McGwire\u2019s rush to break Roger Maris\u2019s major league home run record, a reporter asked an IRS spokesman what would happen if someone caught the baseball that broke the record and returned it, gratis, to McGwire. IRS spokesman Steven Pyrek announced that \u201cthe giver is responsible for paying any applicable tax on any large gift.\u201d If the record-breaking baseball was valued at $1 million, the person who returned it to McGwire could face an IRS bill of $140,000 or more. After a hailstorm of criticism, the agency backed off its interpretation. However, if the case had been less publicized, the donor might well have been gouged.<\/p>\n

President Joe Biden sought to expand the IRS budget and IRS power more than any American president in the preceding half-century. Biden sought a new army of IRS agents to hound Americans and corporations to pay far more taxes.\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0reported that \u201cthe single biggest source of new revenue in the plan comes from dramatically expanding the clout of the nation\u2019s tax agency.\u201d Slate reported, \u201cBiden wants to fund a massive upgrade to the American welfare state by making the IRS great at audits again.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2022, Congress enacted the Inflation Reduction Act. This Biden-backed legislation boosted the agency\u2019s budget by $80 billion over a decade and authorized hiring 87,000 new IRS agents and employees. \u201cOnly 4% of the additional funding will be devoted to improving taxpayer service, while 58% will go to escalating enforcement efforts,\u201d the\u00a0New York Post<\/em>\u00a0reported. Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) estimated that the law would result in more than a million new audits per year, including more than 700,000 targeting Americans earning less than $75,000 a year.<\/p>\n

The Biden administration and its media allies were outraged at suggestions that vastly expanding the number of IRS agents could result in bad things happening to innocent people. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) observed, \u201cThe IRS has never pointed a gun at a billionaire or his employees, so why does the IRS need 87,000 new agents, AR-15s, and 5 million rounds of ammunition? They\u2019re not gunning for billionaires or their bank accounts.\u201d<\/strong> Massie helped publicize a film clip of an IRS recruiting program showing Utah students putting on flak jackets and readying toy guns and handcuffs for a raid \u201ctaking down a landscape business owner who failed to properly report how he paid for his vehicles.\u201d (\u201cFirst they came for the tulip bulbs\u2026\u201d)<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump is reportedly seeking to reduce by 50% the number of IRS employees. If that happens,\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0fretted, \u201cAmericans may have to\u00a0wait longer<\/a>\u00a0to receive refunds or speak with I.R.S. employees in future filing seasons.\u201d\u00a0Some reductions in staffing have already occurred but it remains to be seen how much cutting will occur.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the number of IRS employees, Americans remain in peril thanks to federal tax law, federal regulations, and endless court decisions entitling the IRS to sweeping deference. Unless Congress repeals a hefty stack of revenue laws and nullifies a shelf full of regulations, the IRS will continue to have far too many penalty flags to throw at hapless citizens.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nTue, 04\/15\/2025 – 16:20<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/tax-day-never-forget-irs-culture-bingo<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tax Day, Never Forget IRS Culture Bingo Submitted by Jim Bovard On Tax Day, politicians and mainstream media will hector Americans to be grateful…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1530540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1530539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1530539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1530540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1530539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1530539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1530539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}