Home » 2013 (Page 6)
Yearly Archives: 2013
The Real IRS Tax Scandal
by Brian T. Lynch, MSW
Here is the Internal Revenue Service controversy in a nut shell. Rank and file IRS agents used search terms such as “tea party” to triage a mountain of applications for tax exempt status. What the agents were trying to identify were applications where the purposes of the organizations were primarily political. Under IRS regulations, organizations applying for 501(c)(4) tax exempt status must primarily be involved in social welfare activity. All the triaged applications were eventually approved. Virtually everyone agrees the IRS must be politically neutral, so the methods the agents used to organize their workload is not an acceptable practice.
This principle and these core facts are not in dispute by anyone familiar with the details. The partisan contentions understandably arise from the lengthy inaction by senior IRS officials to end this practice. Were senior managers incredibly blind to what agents were doing or did they turn a blind eye? If it was the latter, did they ignore the practice for practical reasons or political reasons? Who up the political chain of command knew of the practice and when did they learn about it?
As happens often in today’s politically charged atmosphere, the partisan conflagration set off by the revelations is sucking all the oxygen out of the room leaving no one to explore why these practices developed in the first place. The “scandal” is a media induced distraction from much more serious problems under the surface. Among the questions we should be asking are these:
Is there an increase in tax exempt applications and is the increase asymmetrical?
Probably so, although the assessment of this is indirect. According to an analysis of data released by the IRS in response to the criticism, Martin A. Sullivan of TaxAnalysitst.org found that among the tax exempt applications approved by the IRS about two-thirds were submitted by conservative organizations. The remainder were either liberal leaning organizations or politically neutral. According to Professor Rob Reich in the April/May Boston Review, there has also been an unprecedented growth in the number of charitable foundation, or 501(c)(3) organizations. He attributes this to the growing wealth of the richest Americans. They are establishing foundations to leave a legacy and project their political influence on society from beyond the grave. So far, according to the IRS and other sources, there does appear to be a sharp increase in 501(c)(3) and (4) applications for tax exempt status. It also appears that this increase in applications are skewed towards conservative organizations and wealthy donors.
Is there a problem with tax exempt 501(c)(3) and (4) organizations being too overtly political, and if so, is the problem asymmetrical?
Image of Karl Rove by chicagopublicmedia/Flickr
According to some sources, since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United case there has been a growing number of wealthy people and corporations creating charitable foundations and social welfare organizations through which predominantly political messages are being delivered to the public, tax free. Just as we have increasingly been subsidizing big business through corporate welfare, we may now be subsidizing political messaging campaigns directed at us.
Here is an experiment readers can replicate for themselves. Type “left wing organizations” in a Google search. You will see that two right wing organizations and one left wing organization pop up. The first of these is discoverthenetwors.org, a “Guide to the Political Left” put out by David Horowitz’ Freedom Center Foundation. This guide is an alphabetical listing of allegedly left wing organizations, but looking down the list you will see it lumps together such “subversive” left wing organizations as the AARP and Abu Nidal. Abu Nidal is a Middle-East, “Spinoff of the Palestine Liberation Organization… [that] Has killed or maimed more than 900 people in over 20 countries.”
According to it’s mission, “The David Horowitz Freedom Center combats the efforts of the radical left and its Islamist allies to destroy American values and disarm this country as it attempts to defend itself in a time of terror.”
Painting the American left as affiliates of Islamist terrorists (or other notorious dictatorships as seen in on other sites) is a common theme on some conservative websites. This information is what passes as a public educational service justifying tax exempt status. Additionally, the site contains ads, which may or may not be paid advertizing. The site does claim to be 501(c)(3) tax exempt and solicits the viewers tax exempt donations.
The next organization on the search list is the Western Center for Journalism. It bills itself as a 501(c)3 tax exempt foundation and accepts tax exempt donations, yet it describes itself as a conservative organization and promotes a book written by the organizations current president, Floyd Brown. Brown’s latest book, “Obama Enemies List: How Barack Obama Intimidated America and Stole the Election”, was released in January 2013. Virtually all of the contents on this site are partisan in topic and perspective. One article by Steve Baldwin, for instance, starts out this way:
” Very few Americans realize there exists a large network of far left philanthropists and foundations in America dedicated to destroying the American way of life, our Christian-based culture and our free enterprise system. They seek to remove America from its constitutional foundations and move it toward a European-style socialism. Much of this effort is coordinated by a little known group called the Tides Foundation and its related group, the Tides Center.”
So I looked into the Tides Center and found it to be a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to fund projects related to:
“ Art & Film, Civic Engagement, Civil Discourse, Community Development, Disability Rights, Economic Justice,’ Economic Opportunity, Education/Training, Environmental Sustainability, Faith & Spirituality, Food & Agriculture, Health Services/Healthcare Reform, HIV/AIDS, Housing/Homelessness, Human Rights, Immigration, International Development, LGBT Issues, Media ,Native Communities, Nonprofit Spaces, Peace & Conflict Resolution, Professional Development, Racial Justice, Reproductive Justice & Health, Technology, Women & Gender, Youth Development & Organizing”
Donations to the Tides Center are tax exempt, but other than its support for some issues unpopular with conservatives you will find nothing overtly political on the web site.
The third organization on the Google search list is the RightWingWatch.org operated by People for the American Way. This is a liberal organization. RightWingWatch was on the search list in connection with an article refuting a claim by Rick Joyner that Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City Bomber) was actually a left wing radical, not a right wing terrorist. Rick Joyner is the founder and executive director of MorningStar Ministries and Heritage International Ministries. He is also the Senior Pastor at the MorningStar Fellowship Church, a tax exempt organization.
People for the American Way bills itself as a 501(c)(4) organization, but they don’t use our tax money. When you donate you get this disclaimer:
“Because we lobby Congress, donations to People For the American Way, a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization, are not tax deductible.”
In contrast, Freedom Works Foundation is a conservative non-profit organization. It is currently headed by former U.S. House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a Republican. The site say it is inspired by the leadership of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. It’s content is distinctly and exclusively conservative. If you press the icon to donate to the foundation web site you are taken to the donation page for Freedom Works (without the word “foundation”) which is a political action organization. There you will be given a choice to donate, “… where my donation will be used directly in the fight in Washington,” or “… where my donation will be 100% tax deductable and will be used for education, research and other efforts.” So the Freedom Works Foundation, which is tax exempt, shares the donation page of Freedom Works, which isn’t tax exempt.
Now, for symmetry sake, Google “right wing organizations.” The first three organizations (excluding the C.S. Monitor) on the search list are People for the American Way (or RightWingWatch), which does not count donations as tax deductions, the PublicEye.org operated by a tax exempt group named Political Research Associates, and Common Dreams, also tax exempt. The Common Dreams link is to a three paragraph article on the resignation of the IRS commissioner. It isn’t particularly political. The People for the American Way provides an extensive list of right leaning organizations with detailed information on each. Unlike the David Horowitz Freedom Center, this list appears to contain only US organizations. There is no attempt to link these groups to foreign or domestic terrorist organizations. The site describes their effort this way:
“Right Wing organizations come in all shapes and sizes, from think tanks to legal groups, local and national lobbying organizations, foundations and media forums. At any given moment, the Right is at work in our public school systems, courthouses, in Congress and state assemblies. At the same time, right-wing groups are reaching huge audiences through media outlets they own or influence — promoting regressive policies that seek to drive wedges between and among Americans.”
So regressive policies and promoting division among citizens is the worst this group has to say about right wing organizations.
Political Research Associates also provides a list of right wing organizations similar to the one at the PFAW. This list is far less detailed. It doesn’t include foreign or terrorist organizations. There are no militia groups, or hate groups or overtly raciest organizations on the list as far as I can tell. It doesn’t include the Aryan Nation or the Klu Klux Klan, for instance.
This isn’t an exhaustive survey, of course. It’s just an exercise. But on the face of things it does appear that some tax exempt organizations have a very political agenda. It also seems that conservative leaning non-profits are more overtly political and include more information of questionable educational value. The problem of political activity among tax exempt groups seems asymmetrical. The added value to the public worthy of extending tax credits to these, or to any overtly political organization is dubious.
Does the IRS have the personnel and resources to properly handle their workload?
According to the IRS, the answer is no. IRS funding was held flat for three years between FY 2005 and 2007. There was a 2.5% cut in its 2012 budget and now it is being squeezed by budget cuts and the sequestration, prompting protests by IRS personnel. There is also this summary of the IRS situation prior to the last two years of budget cuts:
The most serious problem facing U.S. taxpayers is the combination of the IRS’ expanding workload and the limited resources available to the IRS to handle it. Among the consequences:
• the IRS is unable to adequately meet the service needs of the taxpaying public. [it’s only funded at an 80% level for this service.]
• the IRS is unable to adequately detect and address noncompliance, requiring honest taxpayers to shoulder a disproportionately large share of the tax burden.
• the IRS is unable to maximize revenue collection, contributing to the federal budget deficit.
—National Taxpayer Advocate, 2011 Annual Report to Congress
So the answer to this question seems to be no. This gives credence to claims that IRS line staff were triaging tax exempt applications to better handle their workloads. It also suggests that the problem of the huge collection gap, between what is owed and what is paid, won’t be fixed anytime soon. It has been estimated by the IRS’s own computer analysis that there are about a million tax returns each year that appear to contain fraudulent information but are not audited. At a time when the federal government is starving for revenue the anti-tax sentiments in congress seem to extent to collection of legally due taxes, not just tax increases.
Finally, is IRS agents to determine the degree of political activity permitted by current IRS regulations an impossible job?
The answer to this last question is yes, it is absolutely impossible. In the increasingly polarized politics of today there are often disagrements on who is a liberal or a conservative. The two camps can’t even on a common set of facts for any given topic. How can the IRS possibly create a suitable metric for deciding which 501(c)(4) organizations have crossed the political line. Even more importantly, why is the IRS even trying to make room for political activity for tax exempt organizations? The clear intent of the law excludes the from any political activity at all. This is what tax payers should demand in exchange for the tax break these organization receive from us.
Here then is the real scandal. The IRS, one of the most fundamental agencies in government, is under staff and without resources by congressional design at a time when it faces massive fraud and abuse, growing anti-tax sentiments and a groundswell of people and organizations trying to claim tax exemptions for overtly political purposes. It is trying to police this latter situation with an unenforceable and illegal regulation that it has been saddled with for over 60 years. Why isn’t this the real IRS scandal?
Virginia Gives Many Former Felons Permission to Vote
In Civil Rights Victory, Virginia Restores Voting Rights for Hundreds of Thousands Nonviolent Felons
|
Number of States WithThis Right
|
Percent of US Population With ThisRight
|
QUALIFICATIONS and EXCEPTIONS
|
|
49
|
99.6%
|
Must be A US Citizen
|
|
46
|
91.2%
|
Must be Registered to vote
|
|
20
|
27.6%
|
State’s Deployed Solders Can Vote
|
|
37
|
83.9%
|
Felony Exception
|
|
12
|
15.5%
|
Treason Exception
|
|
13
|
30.9%
|
Incarceration Exception
|
|
33
|
69.5%
|
Mental Capacity Exception
|
|
2
|
0.5%
|
Moral Conduct or other Exception
|
|
23
|
34.0%
|
Restoration from Exception
|
|
10
|
17.6%
|
No quartered solders
|
|
2
|
1.8%
|
Right to Appeal Voter Ineligibility
|
http://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2012/07/voting-rights-denied-for-record-numbers.html
Posted: 07/12/2012 3:01 pm Updated: 07/12/2012 3:08 pm
“A record number of Americans with criminal records cannot vote in what is expected to be a tight presidential election, a new study says.
More than 5.85 million adults who’ve been convicted of a felony aren’t welcome at polling places, according to data through 2010 compiled by The Sentencing Project. That’s 600,000 more than in 2004, the last time the nonprofit group crunched the numbers.
“The vast majority of these disenfranchised adults have been released from prison. Sentencing Project researchers found more than 4 million Americans who cannot cast a ballot because they’re on probation or parole, or live in a state that withholds the right to vote from all ex-felons.
RACIAL DISPARITY
- More than 60% of the people in prison are now racial and ethnic minorities.
- For Black males in their thirties, 1 in every 10 is in prison or jail on any given day.
drugs,” in which two-thirds of all persons in prison for drug offenses are people of color. – The Sentencing Project
When Beauty is Average
Beauty is average. This is truly a paradigm shifting truth. It is confirmed by both digital photography studies and new understandings of how our brains process information. It turns out Plato had it right when he said there was a place where ideal objects existed, he just didn’t know he was describing a function of our cerebral cortex. The ideal table, for instance, is a mental construct or image in our brain that allows us to recognize infinite variations in size, shape, purpose, color, aspect, texture, design, etc. as an object that is still a table. This is a remarkable fact in itself. But then comes the discovery that the most beautiful human faces ends up being the average face. This is mind blown.
http://faceresearch.org/students/averageness
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Individual Faces | Composite Face | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The idea that beauty is average comes from the digital age where photographs can be rendered in pixel formats. The size of the pixels determines the resolution of the photographs. High resolution photographs have many more pixels. Some researchers got the bright idea of taking a lot of high resolution digital portraits of men and woman and then averaging the value of all the pixels that comprised the human male and female face to create a composite image. The images they created of the pixel averaged faces for men and woman turned out to be strikingly beautiful.
Next the researchers took the composite images along with the digital photos of the faces that made up the composite face, and showed these to lots of people. They asked the subjects to rate or rank the beauty of the faces. The researchers found that the average pixel face was most often rated the most beautiful. And so we discovered that beauty is literally the average.
The researchers suggested that as a species the ability to identify beauty, or the average face, may have served a natural selection purpose. They speculated that people with an exactly average appearance are more likely to be healthy, normal and able to have children. Maybe so. Who knows.
What the study also proved, but what the researchers didn’t highlight, is the amazing ability of the brain to identify the exact average of so many faces it encounters. If you think of a bell curve from statistics, the exact average is a relatively small or thin line within the normal range while the normal range of human faces is huge. Just look around and you will see tremendous variations of human faces and body types. But the exact average, or median, of all faces or body types occurs in very few individuals within the population. This fact preserves the truth that beauty is actually very rare.
If it seems like an impossible task for the brain to identify the approximate average human face, then recent understandings of the hierarchical nature of how our cortex processes data suggest how this is done. It turns out that our cerebral cortex creates idealized images of every object we see in our world. This allows us to rapidly and correctly identify object no matter what portion of them we see or individual attributes they may have, such as color, size, texture, composition, design, etc. This attribute also allows us to create idealized images of a human face.
So beauty is average and our brains have a nearly universal sense of beauty. We share this sense because we all have a similar pool of faces from which to identify the average face.
This has profound implications for the arts, but even more profound social implications. It explains how in my desire to be different as a young man I found myself conforming to my peers. When I was young and wanted to distinguish myself from my parents generation. One way I did this was by crudely cutting off the legs off my jeans to create cut-off. It turns out everyone else in my generation was wearing them. I was one of the crowd. In trying to be different from my parents I conformed to others who, like me, also wanted to be different. I identified with an image of who I wanted to be that happened to be the idealized, or exact average, of every other young person wishing to make the same statement.
As it turns out, this self-identified peer conformity is a ubiquitous feature of our human nature. It is possible because of our ability to sort out and idealize groups of objects or people. If I asked you to imagine yourself as a Harley motorcycle biker, you would conger up an idealized version of a biker that approximately represents the average Harley biker. If you acted on this image you might buy and personalize a leather jacket, and do the same for other garments and accessories, until you were satisfied that you fit in with the self-identified peer group of Harley bikers.
We almost effortlessly do this sorting and self-identifying all the time. It explains how we are both so diverse and yet so conforming. We are always moving toward some idealized average image of the groups or things with which we identify even as those idealized averages are shifting over time. But when it comes to thinking about beauty, there is something reassuring about the fact that what makes beautiful people so special is the fact that they are so average. It somehow makes me more content being more or less “normal”.
Tax Breaks Cost US More Revenue than Medicare, Defense or Social Security
Tax breaks, also know as federal tax spending, includes things like mortgage deductions, child tax credits and lowered tax rates on capital gains. The CBO published a report today on what these deductions and tax breaks cost the federal government in annual revenues. The total amount is enormous. The top 10 most revenue syphoning tax cuts (there are more than 200 tax deductions in all) cost $900 billion. Tax spending is greater than budge expenditures for Medicare, Defense, or Social Security. It equals 1/17th of the US economy (or GDP). But taxbreaks or loopholes don’t show up anywhere in the federal budget, so the relative size of these hidden expenses are not usually apparent. They don’t often make it into the national dialogue when we talk about the budget. Below is the CBO report summary.
congressional budget office
supporting the congress since 1975
http://cbo.gov/publication/43768
The Distribution of Major Tax Expenditures in the Individual Income Tax System
report date: May 29, 2013
A number of exclusions, deductions, preferential rates, and credits in the federal tax system cause revenues to be much lower than they would be otherwise for any given structure of tax rates. Some of those provisions—in both the individual and corporate income tax systems—are termed “tax expenditures” because they resemble federal spending by providing financial assistance to specific activities, entities, or groups of people. Tax expenditures, like traditional forms of federal spending, contribute to the federal budget deficit; influence how people work, save, and invest; and affect the distribution of income.
This report examines how 10 of the largest tax expenditures in the individual income tax system in 2013 are distributed among households with different amounts of income. Those expenditures are grouped into four categories:
- Exclusions from taxable income—
- Employer-sponsored health insurance,
- Net pension contributions and earnings,
- Capital gains on assets transferred at death, and
- A portion of Social Security and Railroad Retirement benefits;
- Itemized deductions—
- Certain taxes paid to state and local governments,
- Mortgage interest payments, and
- Charitable contributions;
- Preferential tax rates on capital gains and dividends; and
- Tax credits—
- The earned income tax credit, and
- The child tax credit.
Some of the provisions of law that reduce the amount of taxable income under the individual income tax also decrease the amount of earnings subject to payroll taxes. The figures presented in this report are generally based on the reduction in payroll taxes as well as the reduction in income taxes, but some figures separate those two effects. (Provisions that reduce payroll tax receipts generally reduce future Social Security benefits as well; that effect is not analyzed in this report.)
How Do Tax Expenditures Affect the Federal Budget?
Although the 10 major tax expenditures listed here represent a small fraction of the more than 200 tax expenditures in the individual and corporate income tax systems, they will account for roughly two-thirds of the total budgetary effects of all tax expenditures in fiscal year 2013, CBO estimates. Together, those 10 tax expenditures are estimated to total more than $900 billion, or 5.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), in fiscal year 2013 and are projected to amount to nearly $12 trillion, or 5.4 percent of GDP, over the 2014–2023 period. In addition, tax credits to subsidize premiums for health insurance provided through new exchanges to be established under the Affordable Care Act will represent a new tax expenditure beginning in 2014, estimated to equal 0.4 percent of GDP over the 2014–2023 period.
How Are Tax Expenditures Distributed Among Households?
The 10 major tax expenditures considered here are distributed unevenly across the income scale. In calendar year 2013, more than half of the combined benefits of those tax expenditures will accrue to households with income in the highest quintile (or one-fifth) of the population (with 17 percent going to households in the top 1 percent of the population), CBO estimates. In contrast, 13 percent of those tax expenditures will accrue to households in the middle quintile, and only 8 percent will accrue to households in the lowest quintile (see the top panel of the figure below).
When measured relative to after-tax income, those 10 major tax expenditures are largest for the lowest and highest income quintiles. In calendar year 2013, CBO estimates, the combined benefits will equal nearly 12 percent of after-tax income for households in the lowest income quintile, more than 9 percent for households in the highest quintile, and less than 8 percent for households in the middle three quintiles (see the bottom panel of the figure above).
The distribution of tax expenditures across the income scale varies considerably among the different tax expenditures. For example, CBO estimates that more than 90 percent of the benefits of reduced tax rates on capital gains and dividends will accrue to households in the highest income quintile in 2013, with almost 70 percent going to households in the top percentile. Those benefits will equal 2 percent of after-tax income for the highest quintile and 5 percent of after-tax income for households in the top percentile. In contrast, about half of the benefits of the earned income tax credit will accrue to households in the lowest income quintile, equaling 6 percent of after-tax income for households in that group.
Tax credits that will provide assistance in paying premiums in health insurance exchanges are excluded from the distributional results presented here because they are not in effect in 2013. When those tax credits come into effect, they will appreciably increase tax expenditures for households in the lower and middle income quintiles. Individuals and families who have income between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty guidelines and who meet certain other requirements will be eligible for those credits.
How Do Tax Expenditure Estimates Differ From Revenue Estimates?
Estimates of tax expenditures are traditionally intended to measure the difference between households’ tax liabilities under present law and the tax liabilities they would have incurred if the provisions generating those tax expenditures were repealed but households’ behavior was unchanged. Such estimates do not represent the amount of revenues that would be raised if those provisions were eliminated, because the changes in incentives that would result from eliminating those provisions would lead households to modify their behavior in ways that would mute the impact on revenues. For example, if the preferential tax rates on capital gains realizations were eliminated, taxpayers would reduce the amount of capital gains they realized. Because the size of that tax expenditure is estimated on the basis of the gains that are projected to be realized with the preferential rates in place, the amount of additional revenues that would be received if those preferences were eliminated would be smaller than the reported tax expenditure.
Breadwinner Moms – A New Pew Research Report
The following report is an important story of America’s demographic shifts with significant impliciations for children. If 40% of households with children are headed by working mothers, and some smaller percentage are headed by working fathers, then we are approaching the point where only about half of the children growing up are coming from two parent families. What is the impact on tomorrows society when nearly have the young adults have not grown up with a father or mother role model in their life? It also has other significant implications in terms of equal pay for women issues, day care needs, after school programming and much more. Combine this data with the recent mile stone that there are more poor people living in the suburbs than the city and it all represents some significant social challenges that we must face.
Breadwinner Moms
Mothers Are the Sole or Primary Provider in Four-in-Ten Households with Children; Public Conflicted about the Growing Trend
by Wendy Wang, Kim Parker and Paul Taylor
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/29/breadwinner-moms/
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW
A record 40% of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary source of income for the family, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The share was just 11% in 1960.
These “breadwinner moms” are made up of two very different groups: 5.1 million (37%) are married mothers who have a higher income than their husbands, and 8.6 million (63%) are single mothers.1
The income gap between the two groups is quite large. The median total family income of married mothers who earn more than their husbands was nearly $80,000 in 2011, well above the national median of $57,100 for all families with children, and nearly four times the $23,000 median for families led by a single mother.2
Continue reading at the following URL: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/29/breadwinner-moms/
TOUR THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
The YouTube video below is an awsome tour of the international space station. This isn’t my usual post, I know, but it was so interesting I wanted to share it with you.
Market Logic’s Irrational Origin
In a side comment by Tim Worstall in his recent Forbes commentary, he says: “… if the social costs of climate change were clearly and obviously larger than the consumer benefits of CO2 emissions then we wouldn’t actually have a problem with climate change at all.” He says people would see the soical costs and stop using fossil fules.
That’s like saying smokers would stop smoking if they believed their collective habit raised national health care costs and caused premature death among their cohorts. People still smoke who believe this because human behavior is not so rational. Both of these are also examples of just how limited the logic of the market place really is. It’s limited because it relies on collective human behavior rather than human intellect for its logic. And this is precisely why we sometimes need government actions to supersede illogical market outcomes.
America’s Social Contract And The Measure of Our Commitment
(Note: contains some material from prior posts)
by Brian T. Lynch, MSW
A key element in America’s social contract is the idea that government derives its authority from the consent of the people. So the question should occasional be asked, is our mutual consent to be governed wearing thin? There is evidence to suggest a growing restiveness in certain populations. Some symptoms of declining consent include gridlock in congress marked by an inability to pass any legislation on a simple majority vote, the resurgence in states’ rights activism, calls in some states for secession, citizens arming themselves in fear (or perhaps the hope) of armed resistance and wide spread efforts to manipulate elections. Perhaps the best, most quantitative way to judge the degree to which we consent (or commitment) to self-government is by our willingness to pay taxes.
The attitudes we have towards paying taxes, and the extent to which people and organizations will go to avoid them, is an underappreciated index of our consent to be governed. Just as taxation without representation was a rallying cry leading up to the Revolutionary War, the Tea Party and many other popular reform or resistance groups today rally around taxes as a central point of contention. Objectively speaking, the Tea Party’s opposition to taxes makes no sense since their complaint corresponded with the lowest federal tax rate since the Eisenhower administration. It isn’t until we understand that our attitude towards taxes is a barometer of our consent to be governed that the Tea Party’s tax objections become clear.
For the sake of discussion it is helpful to identify different segments of the population that are particularly opposed to taxes. But keep in mind that our personal attitude towards paying taxes is just as valid an indicator of where each of us falls on this measure of consent.
Let’s begin with those who see themselves through the lens of American individualism. They value self-reliance and see this as a patriotic duty. They tend to think less of those who are more collaborative, more dependent or less successful. They tend to discount the contribution of the public commons to their own welfare and don’t often recognize how massively interdependent advanced societies really are. They believe that less government is best for everyone. These folks are less willing to contribute to tax supported government services other than for military defense. They are ideological individualist. This group may include some libertarians and on the extreme fringes may also include some anarchists or survivalists.
There are those who are suspicious or uncomfortable with American pluralism. These folks tend to live in parts of the country where there is little diversity or just a single predominate minority group. However, folks who hold this belief can be found everywhere. They believe a disproportionate amount of their taxes go to support other ethnic or cultural groups whose members don’t share their same values or work ethic. They may fear that these other groups are taking advantage of government largess. As a result, they are more resentful of paying taxes and more critical of what they see as wasteful government spending. These folks are pluralism-adverse and at the extreme fringes this group may include racists or hate groups. A highly nationalistic subset of this pluralism-adverse group believe their government has already broken faith with them and is threatening their liberty. For them, paying taxes is akin to paying tribute to a foreign potentate. The most extreme of these consider themselves to be soverign citizens.
There are some religious fundamentalists who believe all secular government is evil. Some fundamentalist sects focus on The Book of Revelations and an apocalyptic view of the world in which governments plays a role in the rise of the false prophet. For these groups anything that expands government is evil as well, including increased taxes. They are usually considered to be on the fringe of the Christian community, but they have an impact beyond their numbers.
Then there are those who believe taxes compete or interfere with commerce and free markets. They believe that taxes reduce the capital available for businesses investments. They fear that more taxes will lead to more government regulations and further hinder commerce. They don’t see government spending as simulative for the economy. For them, the provision of government services to those who aren’t successful contributors is an unfair redistribution of wealth. Members of this group are more likely to have higher incomes and a sense of entitlement. They may pride themselves in their ability to avoid paying taxes. At the extreme fringes of this group members tend to see society as being made up of the have and the have nots, the makers and the takers. They are often contemptuous of taxes and government.
Next, there are the disaffected and those too self-absorbed to care much about government. For this group all taxes are an annoyance to be avoided. This is a large and diverse group that is often underrepresented in our national conversations. They include many who are poor, but also many who are middle class folks working hard just to make ends meet. They tend to be swing voters when they vote and their grasp of politics and government policies are more maliable. The underground cash economy is significant for them.
The impact of this growing reluctance by some citizens to pay income taxes is huge. According to a GAO report called “HIGH-RISK SERIES, An Update”, the Internal Revenue Service estimated that the gross tax gap–the difference between taxes owed and taxes paid on time–was $450 billion for tax year 2006. The IRS estimated that it would collect $65 billion from these taxpayers through enforcement actions and late payments, leaving a net tax gap of $385 billion. This doesn’t include the loss of tax revenue due to the underground cash economy and foreign US cash transactions. These create an additional tax gap estimated to be between $400 billion and $540 billion annually. There is also the tax gap created when wealthy investors hide their money in off shore tax havens. According to a study by the Tax Justice Network the world’s super rich have at least $21 trillion secretly hidden away in tax shelters as of 2010. This is equivalent to the size of the Japanese and United States economies combined, according to The Price of Offshore Revisited report. Further, the amount of secretly hidden wealth may be as high as $32 trillion.
Arguably the most tax resistant groups, which also have the greatest fiscal and political impact, are businesses and corporations. The largest loss of tax revenue, representing the lowest level of consent to be governed, comes from the corporate sector. The shift in the percentage of total federal income taxes paid by individuals verses businesses has grown substantially over the years. Individual income taxes raised 41% of the total tax revenue in 1943 while business income taxes made up the rest, or more than half of the income tax receipts. Compare this with today where 79% of total revenues comes from individual income taxes. This shift in tax receipts from corporations to individuals cannot be explained by a shift away from C corporations (who pay the corporate income tax) to S corporations (who don’t). According to the financial site NerdWallet, the 10 most profitable U.S. companies paid an average federal tax rate of just 9 percent in 2011. The group includes such giants as Exxon Mobil, Apple, Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase and General Electric. The Economist recently posted a graphic by the Bureau of Economic Analysis that depicts the decline in corporate taxes juxtaposed to the rise in corporate profits.
The inability of the federal government to collect taxes from the nation’s elite and its biggest corporations is a serious sign of trouble. It signals a real strain in our social contract and severly limits the ability of the government to serve its people. The problem is compounded by the fact that anti-tax sentiments are being exploited by wealthy business interests to ferment dissatisfaction and distrust of our government. A coalition of the most anti-tax, anti government constituents from the various tax adverse segments of society described above would look very similar to the Tea Party base of today’s Republican Party. The power we invest in civil government is the only check we have to balance the power of the largest corporations to do as they wish in pursuit of profits. It would be a mistake to weaken our commitment to good government now when it is under assault.
There are still many who believe taxes are the price we must pay for a just and robust society. Paying taxes is our civic duty and evidence of our commitment to one another. It reflects confidence that our government is representing us and upholding the social contract. The present IRS scandal over the targeting of Tea Party groups for selective scrutiny of their 503(c)4 tax status is really a minor but convenient distraction from the real tax crisis we face. We are facing a crisis of confidence in self-government. It is a challenge of our time to rekindle a popular passion for civil government that is truly of, by and for the people.
Taxes and America’s Social Contract
The American social contract is threadbare in certain parts of America. Areas of this great country are falling into disrepair, dissolution as if under a spell . In places like the Camden, New Jersey and now Josephine County, Oregon, public safety has been compromised by the failure of will to raise taxes. Below you will find a very disturbing report on the latter situation from Oregon Public Broadcasting. It dramatically highlights what can go wrong when citizens can’t make the connection between good government and the tax revenue it takes to have it. First, let’s consider the various segments of our population who oppose raising taxes.
There are those who see themselves through the lens of American individualism. They value self-reliance and see this as a patriotic duty. They tend to think less of those who are more collaborative or more dependent or unsuccessful. They tend to discount the contribution of the public commons to their own welfare and don’t often recognize how massively interdependent our advanced society really is. They believe that less government is best for everyone. These folks are less willing to contribute to tax supported government services other than for military defense. They are ideological individualist. They may include libertarians. On the extreme fringe they may include anarchists or survialists.
There are those who are suspicious or uncomfortable with Ameican pluarism. These folks most often live in parts of the country where there is little diversity or only a single other minority group. But folks who hold this belief can also be found everywhere. They believe a disproportionate amount of their taxes go to support other ethnic or cultual groups whose members don’t share their same values or work ethic. They sometimes fear other groups are taking advantage of government largess. As a result, they are more resentful of paying taxes and more critical of wasteful governement spending. They are pluralism-adverse. At the extremes this group may include racists and hate group. A highly nationalistic subset of this pluralism adverse group believes the federal government has already broken faith with the people and threat our liberty. For them, paying taxes is akin to paying tribute to a foreign potentate.
There are some religious fundamentalists who believe all secular government is evil. For them, anything that expands government is evil as well, including raising taxes.
There are those who believe taxes compete or interfere with commerce and the free market. They think that taxes only reduce the capital available for business and contribute to government regulations. They don’t see government spending as stimulating for the economy. For them, the provision of services to those who aren’t successful contributors to the economy is an unfair redistribution of wealth. This group are more likely to have higher incomes and to pride themselves in their ability to avoid paying taxes. In the extreme they tend to see society as made of the have and have nots, the makers and the takers.
I believe all these groups are being aggitated and moulded into an anti-government political movement to reduce the power of government to regulate powerful corporate interests. But regardless of what you or I believe, the truth of who we are becoming is reflected in the hopes and fears of this 911 caller in Josephine County, Oregon.
With No Officers To Respond To 911 Calls, Josephine Co. Considers Tax Levy
OPB | May 14, 2013 3:40 p.m. | Updated: May 15, 2013 10:50 a.m. | Grants Pass, Oregon
http://www.opb.org/news/article/josephine-county-tax-levy-would-add-deputies-fund-the-jail/
Corporate Taxes Fall as Profits Soar
The Economist states it just right. Big corporations are avoiding their tax obligation. They have no sense of duty or obligation towards the peoples government which created corporations and the condition in which they have flourished. Increasingly, government is a gadfly to corporate profit making as citizens insist, through their government, that we breath clean air, drink pure water and eat healthy foods. Corporations are so large and powerful today that the only checks on their power is big government… hence the sustained attacks they are waging on big government. But when governments no longer have the power or ability to collect taxes from the elite or the largest corporations, they are close to colapsing. That is the message I take away from this latest report. I encourage everyone to go there and read more.
Taxing for some
America’s corporation-tax receipts falter even as company profits soar
THE pressure on tax-avoiders is mounting. In the latest episode Tim Cook, Apple’s boss, was called before a Senate subcommittee to explain why the tech giant had paid no tax on $74 billion of its profits over the past four years—though it has done nothing illegal. This comes at a time when America’s corporate profits are at a record high, thanks to the swift sacking of workers at the start of the recession, lower interest expenses, and the fact that cheap labour in emerging markets has eroded union power, allowing firms to move production offshore and defy demands for pay rises. Meanwhile corporation tax, which makes up 10% of the taxman’s total haul (down from about a third in the 1950s) has plummeted. An increase in businesses structuring themselves as partnerships and “S” corporations, which subject profits to individual rather than corporate income tax, is in part to blame. But tax havens are also culprits, as they lower their tax levels to lure in bigger firms.
Data Driven Viewpoints 