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IRS Lerner takes 5th, refusing to sign return


Raptor Witness

Lerner taking the 5th, is like failing to sign your tax return  

11 members have voted

  1. 1. Given that Ms. Lerner has taken the 5th, does this violate the Equal Protection Clause?

    • Yes, it clearly violates the Equal Protection Clause, because taxpayers are required to testify against themselves when they answer the questions on their tax return, and can be held criminally liable if they make a mistake in answering those questions
      10
    • No, there are two 5th Amendment standards, one for IRS employees testifying before the Congress, and one for taxpayers answering questions on their return
      0
    • I'm afraid to answer this poll because I view the IRS as a God, and God can threaten to, or kill me, however and whenever IT wants. My only appeal is to a Higher God.
      1


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Nobody on Capitol Hill seems to care that we have an Equal Protection Clause in our Constitution. It's as if the separation of church and state is being invoked by the IRS.

On the one hand you have God, Ms. Lerner, who isn't required to testify or answer questions about her activities, and on the other, the millions of taxpayers ... who must.

There's so much blood in the water on this, that even the sharks are blinded by it.

The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."[1] The Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause applies only to state governments, but the requirement of equal protection has been read to apply to the federal government as a component of Fifth Amendment due process. [source]

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Signing your Federal Income Tax Return

You are required to sign your tax return. By signing the return, you are declaring under penalty of perjury that your tax return is accurate. You must not cross out, put a line through, or white out the perjury statement just above the signature line. If you do so, the IRS will consider your tax return "frivolous" and assess a $500 civil penalty.

Edited by Raptor Witness
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Nobody on Capitol Hill seems to care that we have an Equal Protection Clause in our Constitution. It's as if the separation of church and state is being invoked by the IRS.

On the one hand you have God, Ms. Lerner, who isn't required to testify or answer questions about her activities, and on the other, the millions of taxpayers ... who must.

There's so much blood in the water on this, that even the sharks are blinded by it.

The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."[1] The Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause applies only to state governments, but the requirement of equal protection has been read to apply to the federal government as a component of Fifth Amendment due process. [source]

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Signing your Federal Income Tax Return

You are required to sign your tax return. By signing the return, you are declaring under penalty of perjury that your tax return is accurate. You must not cross out, put a line through, or white out the perjury statement just above the signature line. If you do so, the IRS will consider your tax return "frivolous" and assess a $500 civil penalty.

:clap: :clap: :clap:

You are absolutely right! Thumbs up! :tu:

When you are going through an audit by the IRS, you don't get to plead the Fifth....

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Nobody on Capitol Hill seems to care that we have an Equal Protection Clause in our Constitution. It's as if the separation of church and state is being invoked by the IRS.

On the one hand you have God, Ms. Lerner, who isn't required to testify or answer questions about her activities, and on the other, the millions of taxpayers ... who must.

There's so much blood in the water on this, that even the sharks are blinded by it.

The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."[1] The Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause applies only to state governments, but the requirement of equal protection has been read to apply to the federal government as a component of Fifth Amendment due process. [source]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Signing your Federal Income Tax Return

You are required to sign your tax return. By signing the return, you are declaring under penalty of perjury that your tax return is accurate. You must not cross out, put a line through, or white out the perjury statement just above the signature line. If you do so, the IRS will consider your tax return "frivolous" and assess a $500 civil penalty.

Nobody that works for the government should be able to plead the 5th when asked questions pertaining to their job.

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Oliver North did.

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Her pleading the Fifth as an American citizen is fair. Her being in the job she's in, being asked to comment upon the things she is and still pleading the Fifth is hypocrisy on a scale rarely seen even in America.

I seem to recall being told that pleading the Fifth is only legally biding if that is ALL you do, as in from the moment you take the stand, after the "truth, whole truth" bit all you say is "I plead the fifth amendment" and nothing else, if you answer a single question your defence via the fifth is null - is that true?

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Her pleading the Fifth as an American citizen is fair. Her being in the job she's in, being asked to comment upon the things she is and still pleading the Fifth is hypocrisy on a scale rarely seen even in America.

I agree! Not to mention the fact, when the IRS audits you, you don't get to plead the Fifth.....They literally crawl up your butt with a microscope. :no:

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I am getting sick and tired and utterly fed up with the self-serving hypocrisy in government. I do believe we have still some decent people in congress (Ron Paul imo comes to mind) but I wish more people would get outraged. Richard Nixon resigned over less imo.

eta: Many of these people are public servants in name only imo...who knows what strange god they really serve, maybe the god of money. :(

Edited by Gummug
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I am getting sick and tired and utterly fed up with the self-serving hypocrisy in government. I do believe we have still some decent people in congress (Ron Paul imo comes to mind) but I wish more people would get outraged. Richard Nixon resigned over less imo.

eta: Many of these people are public servants in name only imo...who knows what strange god they really serve, maybe the god of money. :(

I completely agree with you. We do have a couple of good people in Washington, but the majority of them a crooks and liars. And yes, Nixon resigned over less. Obama is the president, Nixon always wished he could be. :no:

I think you might like this article:

NIXOBAMA: Powerful Video Compares Scandal Responses

A striking video has been posted to the web directly comparing disgraced president Richard Nixon’s comments over the Watergate scandal with president Obama’s reaction to the multiple scandals his administration is currently embroiled in.

On August 9, 1974, president Richard Nixon resigned from office following damning revelations regarding a cover up relating to a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex. Eventually the scandal also resulted in the indictment, trial, conviction, and incarceration of dozens of Nixon’s top administration officials.

Prior to his resignation, Nixon’s responses to the scandal were to feign ignorance, point to inaccurate talking points provided by aides, cite national security, and encourage the media to let him do his job. Fascinatingly, Obama has made almost exactly the same comments.

Is history repeating itself? Are the two presidents singing from the same scandal-ridden hymn sheet? Judge for yourself:

Nixon: “I first learned from news reports…”

Obama: “I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this.”

Nixon: “The comments I made during this period, the comments made by my press secretary on my behalf were based on the information provided to us at the time we made those comments.”

Obama: “Keep in mind by the way these so-called talking points that were prepared…pretty much matched the assessments that I was receiving at that time.”

Nixon: “And had we not had that kind of security, and that kind of secrecy that allowed for that kind of exchange that is essential…”

Obama: “Leaks related to national security can put people at risk…”

Nixon: “I must now turn my full attention, and I shall do so once
, to the larger duties of this office…”

Obama: “Others may get distracted by chasing every fleeting issue that passes by, but the middle class will always be my number one focus. Period.”

The makers of the video at the Revealing Politics Blog note one statement Nixon made that Obama has yet to make – “In any organization, the man at the top must bear the responsibility. That responsibility, therefore, belongs here in this office. I accept it.”

Watch the video:

Taken from http://www.infowars.com/nixobama-powerful-video-compares-scandal-responses/

Top Constitutional Experts: Obama Is Worse than Nixon

In the wake of the twin scandals of the IRS targeting conservative groups and the Department of Justice spying on AP reporters, the comparisons between Obama and Nixon are everywhere.

But what do experts say?

Former New York Times general counsel James Goodale – who represented the paper during its Pentagon Papers fight with the Nixon administration – said in an interview yesterday that Obama isworse than Nixon when it comes to press freedoms. And see this.

Former constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald noted last year:

We supposedly learned important lessons from the abuses of power of the Nixon administration, and then of the Bush administration: namely, that we don’t trust government officials to exercise power in the dark, with no judicial oversight, with
to prove their accusations. Yet now we hear exactly this same mentality issuing from Obama, his officials and defenders to justify a
far more extreme
than either Nixon or Bush dreamed of asserting
: he’s only killing The Bad Citizens, so there’s no reason to object!

Jonathan Turley – perhaps the top constitutional law expert in the United States (and a liberal) – writes:

The painful fact is that Barack Obama is the president that Nixon always wanted to be.

Four decades ago, Nixon was halted in his determined effort to create an “imperial presidency” with unilateral powers and privileges. In 2013, Obama wields those very same powers openly and without serious opposition. The success of Obama in acquiring the long-denied powers of Nixon is one of his most remarkable, if ignoble, accomplishments. Consider a few examples:

Warrantless surveillance

Nixon’s use of warrantless surveillance led to the creation of a special court called theForeign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA). But the reform turned out to be more form than substance. The secret court turned “probable cause” into a meaningless standard, virtually guaranteeing any surveillance the government wanted. After hundreds of thousands of applications over decades, only a couple have ever been denied.

Last month, the Supreme Court crushed any remaining illusions regarding FISA when itsided with the Obama administration in ruling that potential targets of such spying had to have proof they were spied upon before filing lawsuits, even if the government has declared such evidence to be secret. That’s only the latest among dozens of lawsuits the administration has blocked while surveillance expands exponentially.

Unilateral military action

Nixon’s impeachment included the charge that he evaded Congress’ sole authority to declare war by invading Cambodia. In the Libyan “mission,” Obama announced that only he had the inherent authority to decide what is a “war” and that so long as he called it something different, no congressional approval or even consultation was necessary. He proceeded to bomb a nation’s capital, destroy military units and spend more than a billion dollars in support of one side in a civil war.

Kill lists

Nixon ordered a burglary to find evidence to use against Daniel Ellsberg, who gave the famed Pentagon Papers to the press, and later tried to imprison him. Ellsberg was later told of a secret plot by the White House “plumbers” to “incapacitate” him in a physical attack. It was a shocking revelation. That’s nothing compared with Obama’s assertion of the right to kill any U.S. citizen without a charge, let alone conviction, based on his sole authority. A recently leaked memo argues that the president has a right to kill a citizeneven when he lacks “clear evidence (of) a specific attack” being planned.

To read the rest, see: http://www.infowars.com/top-constitutional-experts-obama-is-worse-than-nixon/

Thought you might like those if you haven't read it yet.

:)

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Her pleading the Fifth as an American citizen is fair. Her being in the job she's in, being asked to comment upon the things she is and still pleading the Fifth is hypocrisy on a scale rarely seen even in America.

I seem to recall being told that pleading the Fifth is only legally biding if that is ALL you do, as in from the moment you take the stand, after the "truth, whole truth" bit all you say is "I plead the fifth amendment" and nothing else, if you answer a single question your defence via the fifth is null - is that true?

I've heard at least one talking head say that you're correct, but this is God we're dealing with, so I guess anything is possible.
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I was never a big fan of the Tea Party movement, but I respected their voice and admired their courage, even if they seemed to interfere with the government's ability to get things done. That's less government by proxy, after all.

The problem with the IRS that will never go away is that no matter what law you write, there will always be the temptation to use it as a political weapon of choice.

We will never be truly healthy as a nation, so long as our own immune system is attacking U.S. Every few years we have some new treatments, everyone's hair falls out, and we go back into remission, but the odd deformity remains inside U.S.

The conservative right has very few friends at this point, so they're looking for anything to make love with the American people again. However, the enemy of my enemy is my friend; ploy, won't work for long. We already know it's an autoimmune disorder.

I expect that there's enough dirt under that rug to bury the IRS, but you'll need a far better physician than currently in place. It will take far more than denials of non-profit status too, because that's just a symptom, not the cause. If you aren't careful, you'll damage the surrounding tissue, and that includes the Presidency.

Obama is not like Nixon, and drawing this comparison is foolish and misleading. I'm old enough to remember Nixon. He was a good gambler with a bad poker face.

The conservative talking heads could do U.S. a favor, by pretending for a moment that they care for the country instead of the ripe and flavorful story.

We all need a party right now. Surely that's something the left and the right can agree on, because if not this, then what?

Edited by Raptor Witness
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Oliver North did.

And it was wrong to allow him to. Just as it is wrong to allow Lerner. Now that we have your partisan shot out of the way, do you have a opinion on this topic?

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The problem with the IRS that will never go away is that no matter what law you write, there will always be the temptation to use it as a political weapon of choice.

Which is why we shouldn't have an IRS. Institute a fair tax....

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Which is why we shouldn't have an IRS. Institute a fair tax....

again, who would collect this tax?

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again, who would collect this tax?

As if another government entity is out of the question. C'mon mr. Big government

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I am getting sick and tired and utterly fed up with the self-serving hypocrisy in government. I do believe we have still some decent people in congress (Ron Paul imo comes to mind) but I wish more people would get outraged. Richard Nixon resigned over less imo.

eta: Many of these people are public servants in name only imo...who knows what strange god they really serve, maybe the god of money. :(

Ron Paul retired from GOV bro.

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Former IRS chief Shulman reportedly visited White House at least 157 times - May 30, 2013 - Fox News

One of the more interesting aspects to this story is the number of times that the former IRS chief visited the White House, and don't tell me he was having tea every nine days, I'm not buying it. I'm also not buying the story that they were working on Obamacare during all those visits. That's not credible.

There's likely something going on, and unless there was a secret gay love affair, the Tea Party has a right to ask a lot more questions about these numerous visits.

Karl Rove seems to think that the President will use his executive privilege to block any revelations as to what may really have been going on in some of those meetings, which means that we may never know.

In the old days, the President could go to J. Edgar Hoover to obtain valuable secrets on his enemies, in exchange for his own protection of course, but that's all changed. The FBI was tainted by Hoover, and would never again have the power to do what he did. However, there's one organization that could easily fill those shoes, especially after the Patriot Act, and that would be God.

This could be the real inside story here, which hasn't made history yet. At the 6:50 minute mark below, we may have part of our answer to what might have been going on in all those meetings at the White House, because we already know that the Tea Party was viewed as subversive; but more importantly, it was viewed as obstructionist, and that could easily be misconstrued as subversion. It would make perfect sense that the IRS would be the weapon of choice in this scenario, and it would go hand in glove with their work on Obamacare.

A special counsel who believes in fasting first, and prayer second, is the man you'll be looking for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzHhRdnGaNU

Edited by Raptor Witness
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Which is why we shouldn't have an IRS. Institute a fair tax....

I read a book about the fair tax, and if it were instituted it would put us light years ahead of what we have now. The bureaucrats and the powers that be that profit from the current system, however, will oppose it with all their power, and so barring a massive waking up of the American people, I'm afraid it hasn't much chance of being implemented. Unfortunately during the 2012 presidential campaign, except for a few of the (unfortunately lesser popular) candidates, I don't think it was even mentioned during the debates. Btw, thanks for the post about Nixon vs. Obama, I've just been reading it. I agree that imo Obama is FAR worse than Nixon. Except for Watergate (and I don't know how much he had to do with that) I don't know much about his presidency or how bad/good he was. At the time I was a veritable ignoramus on politics. Shame on me I guess.

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Ron Paul retired from GOV bro.

And Michelle Bachmann declined another term in congress...I can't say I blame her, I would think she would feel like tearing her hair out at the end of each day, poor girl. Sad to hear that Mr. Paul retired, but for his sake I'm glad, imo he deserves a peaceful retirement.

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which is of course, complete and utter BS

The Right’s IRS ‘Smoking Gun’ is a Total Dud; Turns Out They Didn’t Bother to Read

By: Sarah JonesJun. 1st, 2013more from Sarah Jones

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White House records show former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman signed in for 11 visits, not 157 between 2009 and 2012 as claimed by the Daily Caller and Fox News, The Atlantic revealed.

Here’s a case where President Obama’s efforts toward transparency have greatly confused the pretend journalists hiding out at the propaganda machine known as The Daily Caller. The President opened up the White House visitor logs to the public. But The Daily Caller, which purports to be competent at covering the White House when they’re not heckling the President, thought those logs were something other than what they are. Thus, they concluded that they had found the smoking gun to tie Obama to the IRS “scandal” ala Nixon, except without the tapes and without any proof that these alleged meetings were about anything other than their stated purpose.

The Daily Caller’s absurd attempt to conclude “coordination“:

Publicly released records show that embattled former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visited the White House at least 157 times during the Obama administration, more recorded visits than even the most trusted members of the president’s Cabinet.

… But the scope of Shulman’s White House visits — which strongly suggests coordination by White House officials in the campaign against the president’s political opponents — is even more striking in comparison to the publicly recorded access of Cabinet members.

Of course, it’s hard to get proof of “coordination” when the meetings didn’t take place. It turns out that Garance Franke-Ruta, a rather industrious writer at The Atlantic, bothered to sift through all of the documents in order to determine that actually, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman signed in for 11 visits, not 157, between 2009 and 2012 (my bold):

The latest twist in the conservative effort to tie the IRS tax-exempt targeting scandal to the president is to focus on public visitor records released by the White House, in which former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman’s name appears 157 times between 2009 and 2012.
Unfortunately, few of those pushing this line have bothered to read more than the topline of that public information.
Bill O’Reilly on Thursday called them the “smoking gun” and demanded of Shulman, “You must explain under oath what you were doing at the White House on 157 separate occasions.” His statement built on a Daily Caller story, “IRS’s Shulman had more public White House visits than any Cabinet member.” An Investors Business Daily story and slew of blog items repeated the charges.

“The alibi the White House has wedded itself to is that it had to work closely with the IRS to implement ObamaCare,” the Investor’s Business Daily has written — as if that were not true.

“And yet the public meeting schedules available for review to any media outlet show that very thing: Shulman was cleared primarily to meet with administration staffers involved in implementation of the health-care reform bill,” Garance Franke-Ruta concludes (based on that pesky thing called actual evidence).

These logs were available to the Daily Caller, and IBD, and as Garance Franke-Ruta points out, the logs are a system for Secret Service and White House security, so if your name is on there, you were cleared for a visit. You may or may not have had a visit. That part is important, because that’s where the Daily Caller tripped on their efforts to provide Fox News with an anti-Obama headline they could jack up as the “smoking gun”. They were further tripped up by their lack of understanding regarding what the logs represent, yet they are a member of the White House press pool.

The Daily Caller also seems unaware that these logs were not made public by the Bush administration, so when they claim that Shulman’s predecessor only visited once, they are basing that on the opacity of the former administration rather than on facts. (But this is all about freedom and accountability, not about attacking Obama, even though Heritage directed Republicans to attack Obama rather than legislate.)

It’s just like The Daily Caller and Fox News to: a) not bother to read, B) assume that it’s fair game to conclude that what the visits say they were for is not actually what they are for, with no proof, c) to ignore the fact that the visits were cleared for policy discussions on healthcare at least 76% of the time and d) to accuse Obama of being Nixon, even though there is absolutely not one shred of evidence that the White House had anything to do with the IRS trying to determine who was scamming the IRS with fake nonprofits.

Republicans tout “True the Vote” as their ultimate victim of the IRS, but True the Vote was found by a judge to have acted illegally in aiding Republicans, among other ethical and legal issues.

The real IRS scandal is that nonprofits have been allowed to function as PACs, polluting our political system with dark money. The remedy to the IRS “scandal” is for there to be a zero tolerance rule for all nonprofits. But of course, Republicans don’t want that to happen, because they outspend liberals 34-1 trying to influence politics with their “nonprofits”.

The Right jumped the Nixon shark with this one. In Nixon’s case, there was an actual smoking gun in the form of tapes proving that he targeted his “enemies” out of revenge. On these tapes, Nixon directed aides to use the IRS to go after his enemies. That’s a far cry from claiming that a meeting with healthcare advisers was really a meeting about the IRS, and the Daily Caller can “prove” their fictional conspiracy because there were so many meetings– only there weren’t.

http://www.politicus...other-read.html Edited by ninjadude
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which is of course, complete and utter BS

http://www.politicus...other-read.html

Shulman's Easter Egg Roll excuse for why he visited the White House so many times, was what I would expect from God.

Edited by Raptor Witness
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My theory about what's been going on over at the IRS is very simple. They viewed the Tea Party as a very serious threat to their job security. So they attacked the threat, in order to preserve the status quo, probably hoping the movement would simply die out and go away, especially if they hindered it enough.

In a way, what we see happening today is a more civilized form of the Arab Spring. The IRS used the equivalent of tear gas and rubber bullets, but instead of leaving the square, the protestors got very angry.

In order to satisfy this mob, I suspect they'll need to liquidate the hindrance, and then take away her broom stick.

The problem is that most of the wizards behind those curtains in Washington, must be sent back in their hot air balloons, first.

Edited by Raptor Witness
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I read a book about the fair tax, and if it were instituted it would put us light years ahead of what we have now. The bureaucrats and the powers that be that profit from the current system, however, will oppose it with all their power, and so barring a massive waking up of the American people, I'm afraid it hasn't much chance of being implemented. Unfortunately during the 2012 presidential campaign, except for a few of the (unfortunately lesser popular) candidates, I don't think it was even mentioned during the debates. Btw, thanks for the post about Nixon vs. Obama, I've just been reading it. I agree that imo Obama is FAR worse than Nixon. Except for Watergate (and I don't know how much he had to do with that) I don't know much about his presidency or how bad/good he was. At the time I was a veritable ignoramus on politics. Shame on me I guess.

Yea I first learned about the fair tax back in 2008. It was at the one tea party raily I attended. This guy had a booth where he was passing out pamflits(sp?) about it. I sat BSing with the guy for like an hour. By the time that conversation was over he definitly had me convinced. No way for the rich to avoid taxes through loopholes. Illegals paying taxes. Even the under ground economy will pay thier fair share. Tourist from other countries (at the time) were spending like 40 billion a year here, even they would be contributing to our tax system. NTM it gives the power back to the people where we decide how much we pay in taxes. The IRS has become such a monster with so many rules and regulations that they could litteraly nail anyone they want to the wall. Of course because its impossible to know everything there is to know about the laws, and they have made it so there is no way you can follow all the rules. Heck the money saved on no longer investigating and prosecuting tax cheats alone would be huge.

Edited by preacherman76
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^^^ pamphlet

And yes the fair tax is thee best and far simplest system imaginable.

Edited by F3SS
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Proof the IRS Didn't Target Just Conservatives

Almost one third of the tax-exemption applications selected for additional scrutiny by the IRS were from groups that were not conservative.

Screen%20Shot%202013-06-05%20at%2012.29.43%20AM.pnghttp://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/proof-the-irs-didnt-just-target-conservatives/276536/

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Ok nice pie chart. But where's the slice that indicates liberal audits? The big blue other leaves a lot to be desired.

Edited by F3SS
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