“Memo On IRS Scandal”: Putting A Damper On “Exceptionalism”
To all state and regional IRS managers:
As a result of the critical government report about our agency’s 2010 convention in Anaheim, Calif., the following changes are being implemented immediately.
1. Funds are hereby terminated for all future training videos, including but not limited to “Cupid Shuffle” line-dancing and “Star Trek” parodies.
This rule is retroactive, which means that, sadly, we are cancelling the Game of Thrones parody that is now in production at our Cincinnati office.
(I screened the rough cut of the video and it was impressive. The costuming was authentic, and I thought Herm from our 401(c) Task Force totally nailed it as Tyrion Lannister — especially that British accent! Unfortunately, building a medieval castle on the set cost way more than all those puny Tea Party returns could ever bring in.)
Another casualty of the new spending rules is the multimedia dance video that was to be featured during our coming convention this August. The entire Birmingham office has been working out some smooth moves every afternoon (between audits) for nearly a year.
I’m told the choreography and exotic stagecraft put the Cupid Shufflers to shame. Unfortunately, because of the recent controversy, we won’t get to see “Big Ira and the Itemizers” show off their Gangnam Style groove.
2. Funds are hereby terminated for the hiring of event planners for IRS conferences.
As the inspector general noted, the agency spent more than $133,000 on three outside planners to secure our hotels and catering arrangements in Anaheim. The inspector general’s view is that taxpayer money could be more prudently spent, and I agree.
From now on, all convention planning will be done in-house by IRS personnel utilizing Web sites such as “Google” and “Bing,” which I am told will actually provide current information about hotel pricing in almost any city.
Apparently even the phone numbers of hotels are available online, thereby eliminating the need for our agency to pay an outside contractor to find the numbers and dial them. Who knew?
3. Funds are hereby eliminated for so-called “scouting trips” to IRS conference sites in advance of the event.
Back in 2010, we dispatched 25 employees in the months before the big annual convention, at a cost of about $36,000. The harsh criticism now being heaped upon our agency overlooks the steep logistical challenges in a city as cosmopolitan and confusing as Anaheim.
To simulate the tourist experience, a squad of our designated convention scouts went to Disneyland to navigate the intimidating labyrinths of Mickey’s Toontown and Splash Mountain.
Others ventured to an Angels baseball game, where it’s not uncommon for zestful visitors to become disoriented and require police escorts from the ballpark.
All scouting exercises were conducted in order to steer convention attendees away from local pitfalls. From now on, however, agency guidance will be limited to providing detailed street maps and portable Breathalyzers.
4. Funds are hereby eliminated for hiring outside speakers to address IRS conferences.
In Anaheim the agency paid more than $135,000 in fees to 15 different speakers. The well-meaning effort, meant to motivate and inspire our managers, has become part of the nasty media controversy.
One speaker who received $27,000 got up and told us that “seemingly random combinations of ideas can drive radical innovations.”
Maybe it wasn’t the most penetrating or original idea, but many of our attendees remained totally alert during his presentation.
Another paid guest speed-painted portraits of six famous persons to dramatize the value of creative thinking. For the record, not one of the Kardashians was featured as a portrait subject, yet still the backlash has been intense.
The total cost of the Anaheim shindig was $4.1 million, part of $37.5 million spent by the IRS in 2010 on conferences, meetings and conventions. Those days are over, as you are all aware, because the Obama administration cracked down the following year.
In 2012 the agency spent only $4.8 million on conventions, and we’re committed to reducing our partying budget even more. This year all our speakers will be unpaid.
Linda in our east Portland office has volunteered to present the keynote (“Re-Thinking Form 8949 — Whither Short-Term Capital Assets?”). Afterward she’ll be doing pencil sketches of your favorite family pet, so don’t forget to bring snapshots!
Yours in service,
Acting IRS Commissioner (for now) Danny Werfel
By: Carl Hiaasen, The National Memo, June 11, 2013
“You’re Not Just A Chump”: Mitt Romney Thinks You’re A Sucker
You don’t have accounts in the Caymans? What a chump.
Back in January, when he was asked during a primary debate about the taxes he pays, Mitt Romney made the somewhat odd assertion that “I pay all the taxes that are legally required and not a dollar more. I don’t think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes.” As I’ve written before, this would seem to indicate that Romney believes that if you don’t have a team of accountants who can ferret out every last loophole to minimize your tax bill then you’re just a sucker, so pathetic that you are unworthy of occupying the highest office in the land. But maybe I was being unfair. After all, I’ve been critical of the campaign habit of reading too much into any particular statement a candidate makes. We all say things that upon reflection we’d like to put another way or take back completely, so maybe Romney didn’t quite mean it the way it sounded.
But once you repeat a statement like that more than once, we can be pretty sure you do in fact mean it. And based on what he said in an interview yesterday with ABC News, we can be pretty sure Mitt Romney genuinely believes that if you paid an extra dollar to the federal government, then you’re not just a chump, you’re such a chump we wouldn’t want you to be president:
From time to time I’ve been audited as happens I think to other citizens as well and the accounting firm which prepares my taxes has done a very thorough and complete job pay taxes as legally due. I don’t pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president. I’d think people would want me to follow the law and pay only what the tax code requires.
Think about this for a moment. Romney thinks that paying more than you owed, or even failing to take advantage of every last loophole and tax shelter you could, is so despicable it’s disqualifying, as though it were a moral transgression on par with, I don’t know, stealing a car or abusing your wife or something.
Not only that, both times he has said this he projects the belief onto other people as well. “I don’t think you want someone” the first time, “I’d think people would want me” this time. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say this has its roots in Romney’s time in the private equity world. If you’re investing with a private equity firm, you want the leader of that firm to be smart, thorough, and ruthless. You want him to squeeze every last penny he can from every available source, and of course minimize the taxes he and you will pay. If he says, “I could have set up an elaborate network of shell companies in the Caribbean, but I decided not to,” you might think he had failed you, since the only goal in the endeavor is to make as much money as possible and keep the government’s hands off it.
But the presidency isn’t the chairmanship of a private equity firm, and maybe, just maybe, the qualities that make one effective at the latter aren’t precisely the qualities we want in the former.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that the real issue is that we have a tax system that allows people like Mitt Romney, who takes in about $20 million a year despite the fact that he hasn’t actually held a job in five years other than running for president, to pay a laughably low tax rate, while people who actually work for a living pay a far higher proportion of their income in taxes. Weirdly, Romney thinks that system is just peachy, and he would actually like to tilt it even farther in favor of the wealthy.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, July 30, 2012
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