Christine O’Donnell’s IRS case reveals more than just a ‘smidgen of corruption’
Citizens who flout the Internal Revenue Service face the prospect of jail, but when the IRS flouts the law, it’s business as usual. The case of Christine O’Donnell, former Delaware candidate for U.S. senator, highlights the continuing abuses by the sprawling agency charged with collecting our taxes.
Before running, O’Donnell had heard that if she chose to run in 2010 for the U.S. Senate against former Delaware governor Mike Castle, the IRS and others would “F— with her head,” in the words of a top Delaware political insider.
In short order, someone accessed O’Donnell’s tax return information containing private financial details. A U.S. Treasury agent informed O’Donnell that a Delaware state employee may have accessed her tax information and improperly used it.
After an inquiry by Senator Chuck Grassley, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration confirmed that unidentified persons, presumably IRS employees, had gained improper access to multiple individuals’ tax information. This indicates more than what President Obama would call a “ smidgen of corruption.”
The IRS then wrongly attached an $11,744 tax lien to a property O’Donnell no longer owned, and political opponents speciously used the after-the-fact lien to damage O’Donnell’s standing and manufacture a tax scandal just as she launched her Senate campaign.
On top of the improper lien and the illegal access of her personal tax records, the IRS relentlessly audited and nit-picked O’Donnell’s personal finances. Three years later, the targeted fly-specking yielded … a whopping $1,100 for the federal treasury. That’s a return of $1 per audit-day. At that rate, the IRS would do far better to have its staffers panhandle in the street. Alternatively, the IRS could pursue bigger fish: The former Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, was off by approximately $48,000.
It was bad enough that the IRS would target O’Donnell with a politically motivated audit, an illegitimate lien and the public release of her private financial information. Worse than that, the misconduct in this matter inappropriately affected the outcome of a U.S. Senate election. Now, worst of all, the IRS is successfully thwarting efforts to find and prosecute illegal conduct within the agency.
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Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/28/christine-odonnells-irs-case-reveals-more-than-just-a-smidgen-of-corruption/#ixzz2uiiNso4G |
