[csusbpeace] Major Southern Newspaper Bashes Republicans Over Bill To 'Protect Tax Cheats'
- From: "raccoon" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> ("bigraccoon1")
- To: "CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <CSUSBPEACE@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2023 00:43:51 -0800
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/house-republican-bill-irs-funding-tax-cheats-charlotte-observer_n_63c0b1aee4b0ae9de1c659e5
Major Southern Newspaper Bashes Republicans Over Bill To 'Protect Tax Cheats'
“The GOP regards paying taxes not as a way of supporting the nation, but as
an obligation to be avoided,” noted an editorial in The Charlotte Observer.
House Republicans <https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/republican-party>
aren’t making an impressive beginning given that the very first bill
<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/republicans-irs-funding_n_63bc7e09e4b0b2e1506a108f>they
passed would help shield “tax cheats,” complained an editorial in North
Carolina’s Charlotte Observer
<https://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/article271012847.html>.
Republicans — including all of North Carolina’s GOP representatives — voted
Monday night
<https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/10/house-republicans-have-voted-to-cut-irs-funding-.html>
to slash $71 billion of the $80 billion in additional funding that Congress
provided for the Internal Revenue Service under the Inflation Reduction Act.
The extra money was intended to help ensure “businesses and wealthy
individuals pay the taxes they owe,” the newspaper said in an editorial
Wednesday. Republicans applauded one another after the bill was passed.
“The GOP regards paying taxes not as a way of supporting the nation, but as
an obligation to be avoided,” the Observer added, “They’re not shy about it.”
When Hillary Clinton said during a 2016 presidential debate that Donald Trump
<https://www.huffpost.com/news/topic/donald-trump> paid no taxes, he “leaned
into the microphone and interjected, ‘That makes me smart.’”
The billionaire’s recently released tax returns from 2015 to 2020 reveal
Trump paid $642,000 in federal income tax in 2015
<https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/30/trumps-tax-returns-released-by-house-ways-and-means-committee.html>,
just $750 in 2016 and in 2017, almost $1 million in 2018, $133,000 in 2019
and nothing in 2020 (and sought a $5.7 million refund).
Republicans claim they don’t want to hire thousands of new IRS agents, who
they claim will “hound small businesses and probe conservative groups that
have tax-exempt status,” the newspaper’s editorial said.
The GOP legislation is “symbolic” because the Democratic-controlled Senate
won’t take it up. But the “vote is still depressingly significant,” the
editorial said. “It’s a message that Republican House members ... reject a
fundamental obligation of good citizenship: Obey the law by paying your
taxes.”
The Observer pointed to words carved on the IRS building in Washington, a
quote from a ruling by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “Taxes
are what we pay for a civilized society.”
It “appears,” the newspaper stated, that Republican House members “think that
a civilized society ― a just, equitable and compassionate society ― is not
worth” the price.
Rep. Jerry Nadler <https://www.huffpost.com/topic/jerry-nadler>(D-N.Y.)
accused the Republicans — who complain about an unbalanced budget — of
increasing the federal debt by not spending the money to go after well-heeled
tax scofflaws.
The Congressional Budget Office
<https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2023-01/hr23_IRS.pdf>said Monday that if
the Republican bill became law, it would save $71 billion upfront — but would
cause the government to miss out on $185 billion in uncollected tax revenue
for a net loss of $114 billion over a decade.
IRS audits have declined since 2010, with the “sharpest drop” involving the
highest earners, the Observer pointed out.
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