IRS to cut lawyers who audit richest Americans

[nosillies]

The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service who audit the tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans, specifically those who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer parts of their fortunes to their children and others.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4065408.html

"Some say the move will shield the wealthy." No kidding -- brilliant observation.:sarcasm:

[niallmac]

1. Does anyone really believe the rich are audited anyway?

Maybe a few token cases but all in all the fed knows the huge amount
of tax evasion that goes on in the world of the super rich.
Anyway, gotta stick it to the middle class. Can't waste time
on rich folk.

[kenny blankenship]

2. A trick used as far back as Reagan:

defund oversight and regulatory agencies you don't like, that way you can destoy their ability to function without having to submit the idea (of degrading or decommissioning these federal agencies) to the people's representatives and possibly incur a heavy political price for the antidemocratic nature of your agenda. Reagan defunded agencies and forced reductions in staff (like what is now being forced at IRS) in key agencies that provided oversight to auditing companies (like Arthur Andersen) at the same time he deregulated the Savings and Loans. The first result was the Savings and Loan disaster. You can thank him for the epic corruption scandals like Enron too. Without effective governmental oversight of the private auditing companies, corporate racketeers can shop for an auditor and thereby induce the auditor, who is supposed to be protecting the trust of millions of the investing public, into fudging the numbers. Arguably what auditing companies do is a public ie gov't function, but we let private companies do it with what's supposed to be federal oversight to keep them honest. What we've seen in Worldcom, Enron, and others are only the spectacularly explosive failures that can result from account shopping--the tip of an iceberg of rotten practices.

[Deja Q]

3. Wouldn't the rich be more likely to cheat?

Especially when their one aim is to amass as much money as possible?

Hell, look at Enron and what they did to get money.

Anyone heardled as a genius in business should, at least, have an eye kept on them.

[nosillies]

4. I think we all have valid reasons to be cynical on this topic

I just hope this story gets out there to the "average joe," because I think it's an issue that could change some Republican voters' minds. It was in my local newspaper this morning, and it seems in quite a few others, but IMO, things in the paper don't get noticed. It has to make a major news broadcast.