Submitted by Mrs Panstreppon (not verified) on Sun, 08/20/2006 - 9:27am.
I was searching for information about the history of the earned income tax credit and found David Cay Johnston's Pulitzer prize winning story about the IRS published by the New York Times in April 2000. online. David Cay Johnstonalso is the author of an excellent and readable book about the IRS and our tax system.
I never pass up reading a story by David Johnston nor should anyone concerned about good government. Without a fair and efficient tax system, there is no good government.
"The I.R.S. audited 1.36 percent of all tax returns filed by people making less than $25,000 last year, compared with 1.15 percent of returns filed by those making $100,000 or more. Since 1988, audit rates for the poor have increased by a third, from 1.03 percent, while falling 90 percent for the wealthiest Americans, from 11.4 percent..
"But there has been no reason to reduce audits of corporations and the self-employed, which fell to record low levels last year because Congress did not authorize funds to keep up with the increased number of such taxpayers. These taxpayers received less scrutiny even though the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said in 1997 that they are more likely than the working poor to pay less in taxes than they owe...
The intensified focus on low-income taxpayers resulted from pressure on the I.R.S. beginning in 1995. Newt Gingrich, who was then House speaker, and other Republican Congressional leaders were concerned about misuse of the earned income tax credit, a program that allows the working poor, especially those with children, to receive money from the government through a form of negative income tax....
Much of the decline in enforcement is because of shrinking staff and complex new rules enacted by Congress in the I.R.S. Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998...And the permanent I.R.S. staff is the same size now as in 1983,even though the total number of tax returns has increased one-third and the number of complex returns by high-income individuals has grown even more...
Last week, asking a House subcommittee to support a 9 percent increase in his budget, Mr. Rossotti said that "we're really risking the entire tax system" by continually slashing audit rates...
For now, though, the I.R.S. is scrutinizing the earned income credit with such wariness that it is sometimes denying the credit to people who are legitimately owed it on nothing more than suspicion, according to several low-income taxpayer clinics run by law schools...
To identify tax cheating by high-income taxpayers and those with complex returns the I.R.S. relies on face-to-face audits by highly trained revenue agents. The number of such audits fell sharply again last year.
In 1981, the earliest year for which data is available, one in 63 tax returns received such an audit, but last year only one in 322 did, down from one in 217 in 1998.
This decline partly reflects the shrunken I.R.S. audit staff, which has less time to examine complex returns...
But since 1995 Congress has barred new studies to measure taxpayer compliance by the I.R.S. "
In 1996, I knew all on my own that the IRS was in trouble and the situation has only gotten worse since then.
If I were running the IRS, I'd spend lot of money to advertise the 10% reward of taxes recovered for turning in a tax cheat and I'd streamline the process. If the ORS ever called me down to its office, I'd tell them all about the crooks I worked for, that's for sure.
LOL- I think it was November 2003 when I got so disgusted reading about Charles A. Gargano, Vice-Chairman of the New York Port Authority and president of The Empire State Development Corp., that I turned him and the Cornerstone Group into the IRS. I didn't try to claim a reward but I should have.
The Cornerstone Group was real estate development company in Martin County FL owned by Matio Posillico. Posillico, of course, is Gargano's business partner and one of the principals of J. D. Posillico (as I'm sure Charlie still is). J. D. Posillico and other Posillico-owned ventures probaby have more than a billion dollars of business with New York State and the NY-NJ Port Authority in the last fifiteen years.
You used to be able to easily view the property transactions of the Cornerstone Group in the Martin County property records online. Now you have to dig a bit. The County Clerk's database also has Cornerstone records online.
I know all of the big names from Suffolk County so it was pretty easy for me to follow them. Charlie, for example, bought a piece of property in 1992 from the Cornerstone Group for $170k and then sold it back to the Cornerstone Group for $90k in 1997. Does that sound legit?
I think it was George Benedict, owner of a rehab center in Suffolk, who bought four lots for $75k each and then sold three of them back to the Cornerstone Group for $15k each. Benedict, who gets Nassau and Sufolk County funding for running rehab programs, previously was involved in a shady bankruptcy in New Hampshire, IIRC.
Sal Avellino, Carmine's brother, was another "investor" who lost money. Carmine Avellino, of course, was a member of the Luchese family and who is now in prison for the murder of the Kubecka brothers which resulted from a dispute about carting.
I'm out of time and I think I've rambled on long enough.
I was searching for information about the history of the earned income tax credit and found David Cay Johnston's Pulitzer prize winning story about the IRS published by the New York Times in April 2000. online. David Cay Johnstonalso is the author of an excellent and readable book about the IRS and our tax system.
I never pass up reading a story by David Johnston nor should anyone concerned about good government. Without a fair and efficient tax system, there is no good government.
Even if your eyes glaze over at just the thought of reading about the IRS and taxes, stick with ""IRS More Likely to Audit the Poor and Not the Rich".
A few excerpts:
"The I.R.S. audited 1.36 percent of all tax returns filed by people making less than $25,000 last year, compared with 1.15 percent of returns filed by those making $100,000 or more. Since 1988, audit rates for the poor have increased by a third, from 1.03 percent, while falling 90 percent for the wealthiest Americans, from 11.4 percent..
"But there has been no reason to reduce audits of corporations and the self-employed, which fell to record low levels last year because Congress did not authorize funds to keep up with the increased number of such taxpayers. These taxpayers received less scrutiny even though the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said in 1997 that they are more likely than the working poor to pay less in taxes than they owe...
The intensified focus on low-income taxpayers resulted from pressure on the I.R.S. beginning in 1995. Newt Gingrich, who was then House speaker, and other Republican Congressional leaders were concerned about misuse of the earned income tax credit, a program that allows the working poor, especially those with children, to receive money from the government through a form of negative income tax....Much of the decline in enforcement is because of shrinking staff and complex new rules enacted by Congress in the I.R.S. Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998...And the permanent I.R.S. staff is the same size now as in 1983,even though the total number of tax returns has increased one-third and the number of complex returns by high-income individuals has grown even more...
Last week, asking a House subcommittee to support a 9 percent increase in his budget, Mr. Rossotti said that "we're really risking the entire tax system" by continually slashing audit rates...
For now, though, the I.R.S. is scrutinizing the earned income credit with such wariness that it is sometimes denying the credit to people who are legitimately owed it on nothing more than suspicion, according to several low-income taxpayer clinics run by law schools...
To identify tax cheating by high-income taxpayers and those with complex returns the I.R.S. relies on face-to-face audits by highly trained revenue agents. The number of such audits fell sharply again last year.
In 1981, the earliest year for which data is available, one in 63 tax returns received such an audit, but last year only one in 322 did, down from one in 217 in 1998.
This decline partly reflects the shrunken I.R.S. audit staff, which has less time to examine complex returns...
But since 1995 Congress has barred new studies to measure taxpayer compliance by the I.R.S. "
In 1996, I knew all on my own that the IRS was in trouble and the situation has only gotten worse since then.
If I were running the IRS, I'd spend lot of money to advertise the 10% reward of taxes recovered for turning in a tax cheat and I'd streamline the process. If the ORS ever called me down to its office, I'd tell them all about the crooks I worked for, that's for sure.
LOL- I think it was November 2003 when I got so disgusted reading about Charles A. Gargano, Vice-Chairman of the New York Port Authority and president of The Empire State Development Corp., that I turned him and the Cornerstone Group into the IRS. I didn't try to claim a reward but I should have.
The Cornerstone Group was real estate development company in Martin County FL owned by Matio Posillico. Posillico, of course, is Gargano's business partner and one of the principals of J. D. Posillico (as I'm sure Charlie still is). J. D. Posillico and other Posillico-owned ventures probaby have more than a billion dollars of business with New York State and the NY-NJ Port Authority in the last fifiteen years.
You used to be able to easily view the property transactions of the Cornerstone Group in the Martin County property records online. Now you have to dig a bit. The County Clerk's database also has Cornerstone records online.
I know all of the big names from Suffolk County so it was pretty easy for me to follow them. Charlie, for example, bought a piece of property in 1992 from the Cornerstone Group for $170k and then sold it back to the Cornerstone Group for $90k in 1997. Does that sound legit?
I think it was George Benedict, owner of a rehab center in Suffolk, who bought four lots for $75k each and then sold three of them back to the Cornerstone Group for $15k each. Benedict, who gets Nassau and Sufolk County funding for running rehab programs, previously was involved in a shady bankruptcy in New Hampshire, IIRC.
Sal Avellino, Carmine's brother, was another "investor" who lost money. Carmine Avellino, of course, was a member of the Luchese family and who is now in prison for the murder of the Kubecka brothers which resulted from a dispute about carting.
I'm out of time and I think I've rambled on long enough.