Readers of this column know that the federal government wastes a lot of taxpayers’ money. How much? Last year, by its own estimate, the government sent out $100 billion in improper payments. In fact, as Rep. John Mica explained, “It’s over $100 billion each of the last five years. That’s a staggering half a…
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IRS bosses claim to have lost two years of emails with direct bearing on the targeting scandal. Federal and state government agencies could respond to these mysterious losses by expanding efforts to preserve all public records. But as Christopher Cadelago explains in the Sacramento Bee, Covered California is taking a different approach. California’s health…
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As we recently noted, Americans are still paying a heavy price for mistakes by the Internal Revenue Service. These include a “Seizure Fever” campaign that rewarded IRS employees based on how much money they had confiscated. The IRS also handed out billions in improper payments and fraudulent tax returns, paid millions in bonuses to…
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Seventy-one years ago, on July 1, 1943, the federal government first started withholding income tax from workers’ paychecks. For the first time, the government would get workers’ money even before the workers did. As a freerepublic blogger noted on the 60th anniversary, that’s not exactly an occasion for celebration. “Why is withholding so bad?…
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Abuse of Americans by the Internal Revenue Service is nothing new. As Gary Klott wrote in the New York Times in 1987, the federal agency was basing promotions on how much money its agents had seized. An IRS office in Los Angeles bore a sign reading “Seizure Fever – Catch it!” and those who…
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Most Americans have completed their tax returns and may even have got back some of their own money. Now they should get out the government cost calculator again because as Kelly Cohen reports in the Washington Examiner, last year the IRS gave out between $13.3 billion and $15.6 billion in improper payments. That amounted…
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When calculating the cost of government, taxpayers should never forget the Internal Revenue Service and its institutionalized waste. As an official report notes, between October 1, 2010 and December 31, 2012, the IRS gave more than $2.8 million in bonuses to 2,800 employees with “recent substantiated conduct issues resulting in disciplinary action.” So the…
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April 15, the deadline to file returns, looms large on the calendar of many Americans. That date, unfortunately, fails to give taxpayers the full picture of how much of their money government is taking. As the Tax Foundation explains that task falls to Tax Freedom Day, the day when the nation as a whole…
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As we have noted, the IRS targets supporters of limited government, calls it “horrible customer service,” and resists inquiry. The IRS also does a poor job combatting fraud, and sends out more than $3 billion to identity thieves. The Social Security Administration has paid out more than $30 million to at least 1,546 dead…
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Early 2014, with tax time approaching, is a good time to recall some hard realities. New government entitlements such as Obamacare are proving a colossal bust, and the federal government has been busy creating brand new agencies of dubious utility, such as the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. None of that means that older federal…
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