U.S. Appeals Court Judge Learned Hand famously wrote in Helvering v. Gregory, 69 F.2d 809 (1934) that, [A]nyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one’s taxes. [...]
Tags: Tax Crimes · Tax Policy · Taxes 101 · Taxpayer Rights
Often, when a taxpayer speaks to a low-level IRS official about a tax issue the official tells him one or more of the following: You must pay the debt or you will be criminally prosecuted If you don’t pay the debt in full within so many days, your assets will be seized It’s a waste of money to [...]
Tags: IRS procedure · Opinion · Taxpayer Rights
Kevin Kilduff has been stopped by the IRS from making a living for two years because he filed a few tax returns late, but real tax scofflaws get to keep their federal jobs. From Justin Higginbottom of Tax Policy Blog: From Politico: Chaffetz will introduce legislation Thursday that would allow Hill offices to get rid of the hundreds of Senate and [...]
Tags: Legislative Watch · Taxpayer Rights
Clarence Earl Gideon must be turning over in his grave. Imagine a judicial system where criminal prosecutors had the power to disbar criminal defense lawyers. How long do you think it would take the United States Supreme Court to issue a unanimous decision declaring that system unconstitutional? Yet the IRS is empowered to punish with the full force [...]
Tags: IRS procedure · Regulation of Tax Preparers · Taxpayer Rights
WebCPA reports that our pal Joe Francis - the shaper of young teenage minds and other stuff - is being forced into bankruptcy by a whopping $34 million IRS lien: [The] CEO of the company that produces the racy “Girls Gone Wild” video series, is in trouble with the IRS again only weeks after a judge sentenced [...]
Tags: IRS Liens and Levies · News · Taxpayer Rights
I have had IRS agents bypass my power of attorney because I didn’t return their phone calls the same day my office received them. Now it seems that our favorite federal bureaucracy holds taxpayers and their professionals to a much higher standard than it holds itself. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) reports that [...]
Tags: Taxpayer Rights
Fellow CPA and tax blogger Monica Lawver writes about the wackiness of some IRS agents: Seems the news is flooded these days with stories of IRS agents and their various shenanigans. I hope stories like these convince people with IRS trouble to seek the help of a qualified tax professional! In a perfect world, the [...]
Tags: Tax Collections · Taxpayer Rights
