JFK and IRS Political targeting

[Douglas Caddy]

Wall Street Journal

May 14, 2013

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324715704578482823301630836.html

 

Excerpt James Bovard: A Brief History of IRS Political Targeting

:

President John F. Kennedy raised the political exploitation of the IRS to an art form. Shortly after capturing the presidency, JFK denounced "the discordant voices of extremism" and derided people who distrust their leaders—President Obama didn't invent that particular rhetorical line. Shortly thereafter, JFK signaled at a news conference that he expected the IRS to be vigilant in policing the tax-exempt status of questionable (read: conservative) organizations.

Within a few days of Kennedy's remarks, the IRS launched the Ideological Organizations Audit Project. It targeted right-leaning groups, including the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, the American Enterprise Institute and the Foundation for Economic Education. Kennedy also used the IRS to strong-arm companies into complying with "voluntary" price controls. Steel executives who defied the administration were singled out for audits.

A 1976 report by the Senate Select Committee on Government Intelligence on the Kennedy program noted: "By directing tax audits at individuals and groups solely  because of their political beliefs, the Ideological Organizations Audit Project established a precedent for a far more elaborate program of targeting 'dissidents.'"

After Richard Nixon took office, his administration quickly created a Special Services Staff to mastermind what a memo called "all IRS activities involving ideological, militant, subversive, radical, and similar type organizations." More than 10,000 individuals and groups were targeted because of their political activism or slant between 1969 and 1973, including Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling (a left-wing critic of the Vietnam War) and the far-right John Birch Society.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Here is a  more objective view of the subject than the RW nut Bovard.

https://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/anger-over-irs-audits-of-conservatives-anchored-in-long-history-of-abuse/

Kennedy did not at all raise it to an art form, that was Nixon as you can see, who actually turned  it over to the infamous Tom Huston.

The question that RFK was pursuing was simple:  non profits are not supposed to do political advocacy.

https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/political-campaign-activities-risks-tax-exempt-status

To say the John Birch Society was not doing such stuff was ludicrous.  How many copies of that hatchet job book A Texan Looks at Lyndon did they send out for the 1964 election? And why did they?  To get Goldwater elected.

Telling half the story is pretty much presenting a manufactured tall tale.

[Robert Montenegro]

On 5/30/2020 at 3:48 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Telling half the story is pretty much presenting a manufactured tall tale.

Damn straight, Mr. DiEugenio!

In fact, let's take it a step further.

President Kennedy's initial pick for Vice President was United Automobile Workers union president and civil-rights champion Walter Philip Reuther

Mr. Reuther (who was dubbed by many in the Afro-American community as the "...white Martin Luther King...") and his personal general counsel Joseph Louis Rauh Jr., oversaw a gigantic investigation of the "far-right" domestic ideologues in the United States which ultimately was the core of all of President Kennedy's actions against segregationists, rouge military commanders, capital-based fascists, paramilitary groups and the far-reaching invasive authoritarianism of John Edgar Hoover's FBI, Harry Jacob Anslinger's FBN and Allen Welsh Dulles' CIA.

Walter Reuther was also a sworn enemy of Major General Barry Morris Goldwater and Henry Ford II, both fascists in their own right.

Just examine the actions of Harry Herbet Bennett, who I hear from some JFK murder researchers that I work with, provided his personal 60 acres Sky Valley desert hideaway as a site to train assassins and commandos involved in the Bay of Pigs Invasion AKA Operation Zapata.

It's location was ideal, considering its proximity to the then mafia controlled city of Palm Springs and the then atomic test site in the Salton Sea, which was under the security of the Wackenhut Corporation (who also controlled the security for Redbird Airport on the day President Kennedy was murdered).

High altitude low opening airborne drops into the Salton Sea took place as a precursor to the invasion of Cuba. I know that much, because my great-uncle, United States Army Special Forces crypto-linguist, Specialist-9 Miguel "Mousy" Lara, was the chief of experimental parachute research for the Jump School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in 1959 and he gave my father (himself a United States Marine Corps Force Recon team leader) his entire military history before he died.

In any case, President Kennedy used the phenomenon of IRS targeting for the cause of humanity.

I fart in the direction the John Birch Society and the far-right, may they all burn in hell. 

Incidentally, my great uncle Miguel started his military career as Major Gerald E. Rodehaver's personal driver in 1942; the same Maj. Rodehaver who was the commander of the Service Battalion of the First Special Service Force.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Robert Montenegro

[Chuck Schwartz]

Another good post, Robert.

[James DiEugenio]

Joe Rauh was a good lawyer and legendary defender of civil rights in Washington.

He made a great comment about how the media assaulted and defamed Dick Sprague, the first HSCA Chief Counsel.  To the point he had to leave. Rauh knew Sprague and his work.  He told Jerry Policoff:

"You know, I never thought the Kennedy case was a conspiracy. But if they can go that to Dick Sprague, it must have been."

 

 

[Robert Montenegro]

20 hours ago, Chuck Schwartz said:

Another good post, Robert.

Thank you, I'm flattered! Sorry I have not been posting regularly at my topic: "Confederate Counterinsurgencies And GLADIO Gambits: The JFK Murder Seen Thru A “Stay-Behind” Lens…" but I have been really busy with my new career.

6 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

"You know, I never thought the Kennedy case was a conspiracy. But if they can go that to Dick Sprague, it must have been."

Dick Sprague was brilliant, for he was using a "Pattern recognition template" where upon he simply combed the combined history of US covert action operations, looked for operations similar to the JFK murder and backtracked the personnel in those operations to the intrigue leading up to events in Dallas, Miami and Chicago.

Very similar to Professor Peter Dale Scott's "Negative Template" theory.

If only attorneys Mark Lane and William Francis Pepper had the information we have today.

Of course, if I had physical access to the likes of David Atlee Phillips, I would put some of the "advanced interrogation" training I received in Kyrgyzstan from the Polish Army "Wojska Specjalne" commandos to good effect...

😉

Edited June 1, 2020 by Robert Montenegro

[Chuck Schwartz]

From the current issue of Forbes..

The Internal Revenue Service watchdog TIGTA says the IRS is ignoring hundreds of thousands of delinquent high-income taxpayers who owe billions of dollars in total. That’s sobering news as millions of Americans still are gathering documents to file their 2019 tax returns by the July 15, 2020 deadline—pushed back from the normal April 15 deadline because of Covid-19. The American tax system is voluntary: You file an annual return and pay your share. Most taxpayers (84%) pay their taxes in full and on time.

However, the Treasury Inspector General For Tax Administration identified 879,415 high-income nonfilers for tax years 2014 through 2016 with an estimated tax due of $45.7 billion. The top 100 high-income nonfilers during that time period that the IRS did not address or resolve had estimated taxes due totaling $9.9 billion. TIGTA says that the IRS failed to send out delinquency notices and shelved cases, missing the opportunity to bring these taxpayers back into compliance at a huge cost to the Treasury.

Here’s the damning evidence from the TIGTA report, High-Income Nonfilers Owing Billions Of Dollars Are Not Being Worked By The Internal Revenue Service:

The IRS did not work 369,180 high-income nonfilers, with estimated tax due of $20.8 billion. Of the 369,180 high-income nonfilers, 326,579 were not placed in inventory to be selected for work and 42,601 were closed out of the inventory without ever being worked. In addition, the remaining 510,235 high-income nonfilers, totaling estimated tax due of $24.9 billion, are sitting in one of the Collection function’s inventory streams and will likely not be pursued as resources decline.

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High-income nonfilers, a small percentage of the nonfiler population, reflect a higher noncompliance risk than other nonfilers, so resolving these cases generates a greater return on investment, TIGTA says. The IRS used to pursue most nonfiler cases, but with some exceptions, that no longer appears to be the case, and the number of nonfilers has been growing.  

Declining IRS resources are to blame. From fiscal year 2013 through fiscal year 2018, there was a 19% decline in staff resources within the IRS’s collection function. As the number of tax collectors has been declining, the nonfiler component of the tax gap has gone up.

How does the IRS track down nonfilers in the first place? There’s third party reporting—those are forms sent to both the IRS and the taxpayer, including Form W-2 for wages, Form 1099-Misc. for self-employment income, and Form 1099-B for stock sales. The IRS also looks at past filers who later fail to file.

Are nonfilers always on the hook for back taxes due? There is no statute of limitations to pursue nonfilers civilly, but the IRS has a policy of only pursuing six years back. The criminal nonfiler statute of limitations is six years.

The IRS agrees that high-income nonfilers constitute a problem, and it is piloting programs to crack down, including compliance sweeps. In one pilot, it found that letters get more results than postcard notices. In another pilot, the IRS reached more nonfilers by pursuing just one year’s unfiled return, but that meant less revenue collected. High-income taxpayers with multiple years of unfiled returns may not be deterred from future nonfiling if the IRS only asks for one year’s tax return, TIGTA notes.

TIGTA calls for more resources for the IRS (that’s up to Congress). It recommends an IRS team that specifically focuses on high-income nonfiler cases, a nonfiler strategy that ensures that delinquency notices are issued to all high-income nonfilers, and says that, at a minimum, the IRS should pursue the 100 folks with the biggest potential bills.

“If high-income taxpayers believe the IRS’s effort in this area is temporary or intermittent, it is unlikely to have a long-term benefit on voluntary tax compliance,” the report says.”