Let’s treat Lois Lerner the way she and the rest of the IRS would treat us.
7 thoughts on “Guilty Until Proven Innocent”
I think I told this story about “half a cow.”
An attorney told of representing a “Belgium farmer” from a part of the world where Brett Favre was and still is immensely popular (Mr. Favre is Cajun, but everyone thought him to be Walloon). The poor man was the subject of an IRS audit, and the agent questioned him, “How many cows did you take”, that is, cull from his farm business and serve as steaks and hamburger for his family. Taking a cow from the business for personal consumption needs to count as income.
This naturally suspicious man didn’t want to admit to taking any of the cows for this purpose whereas the IRS, in conducting these audits, has “norms” on what they think a typical farmer does unless you have records to convince them otherwise. My attorney friend tells me that a lot of local bars fail as businesses because they don’t keep adequate records. In the absence of such records, the IRS will go with their “norms” on what a bar is expected to take in receipts, a bar owner is going to owe a rate of tax on that amount of income unless they can provide otherwise, and these guys go bankrupt when they are unable to pay.
So yes, you are required to keep detailed records, but you are not in “trouble” if you don’t have such records, it is just that the IRS will guess at your income making “reasonable person” assumptions. And yes, people who work for the IRS are reasonable people, and part of what my friend does is negotiate on behalf of his clients fair tax payments in such situations.
So after nagging this farmer, “c’mon, you didn’t even take one cow for your personal consumption”, the IRS agent said, “I am putting you down for half a cow.”
The attorney persuaded his client to settle for half a cow in place of going to court over this. But the attorney thought this to be quite humorous as even though he is not a farmer, he and most of the rest of us are aware that cows come in whole numbers rather than fractions.
So Jim, I don’t think the IRS to be evil, I believe them to be conducting a very necessary function in our government, you cannot blame the IRS for the onerous nature of the tax code because that is in the lap of Congress, and that the IRS can be reasonable and accomodating in determining what a person owes in taxes under the law.
That said, I really don’t know why you are digging in your heels defending what is happening over Mr. Koskinen and Ms. Lerner. Apart from the over-the-top claims of some on the Right, we really do have a system of “voluntary” tax compliance that is based on reasonable behavior from both the tax payer and the tax collector. Recent events, which in the absence of the legally mandated records lead a reasonable person to conclude that something fishy is going on. Defending this fishiness undermines our tax system.
And a ‘reasonable person’ would assume that the IRS is blatantly lying to Congress to cover up illegal acts.
Agreed. That is why I am puzzled why these IRS people are “stonewalling”, leading reasonable people to believe that there is a White House connection. Or maybe there is, and that is why you see this.
I’m sure the “norms” are reasonable, but that doesn’t make them right from the innocent until proven guilty perspective. In our system, the prosecutor is supposed to have to prove that the farmer took half a cow for his family. They didn’t have to in this case because the farmer’s lawyer knew his client didn’t have the time or money to really fight it. That the state can do something doesn’t make it right.
But we are not talking about a prosecutor in a court. We are talking about an offer of settlement, the civil law version of pleading to a lesser charge. Just as a public defender “in the hood” has a good idea of what his clients are up to, my friend with 30 years experience had a good idea of the practices of farmers in his community. The “half a cow” was a face-saving concession by both sides in this stand off, but the implication was the farmer was taking meat for his table but would not admit it.
What my friend was trying to tell me is that you either keep accurate business records or the IRS will decide for you the cash flows in your business — based on statistics and audits of other taxpayers. I mean, what is the IRS supposed to do, a person doesn’t keep records and runs their neighborhood bar on a cash basis, there is evidence that a business of this type can bring in a substantial amount of money, but the IRS is to take that person at their word that they didn’t make anything? Substantial sums could be hidden from taxes that way.
What I am saying is that the IRS is not the beast with seven heads and ten horns, but you probably also want to be represented by someone like my friend if “called on the carpet” by the IRS who knows how to negotiate on your behalf. This is what we call the “voluntary” system of tax compliance, that they don’t use an intrusive police state to count every last penny, that there is a willingness to “split the difference”, so that on balance, taxes get paid — half a cow.
If you see an injustice in this, it is not the IRS but Congress that needs to rewrite the law on what is taxable and how it is to be taxed.
But the whole system is based on trust, comity, and cooperation, and what the IRS scandal does is undermine all of that. Contrary to folklore, the IRS is not a bunch of meanies, that is, until now, and this is why this situation should be regarded as a crisis by those who believe in the necessity of paying taxes to obtain the benefits of a strong government.
On a practical level, I see what you are saying. Of course the farmer was taking a cow or two to feed his family and settling with the IRS made perfect sense. Both the farmer and the IRS were being reasonable, so everyone wins.
It’s when things get unreasonable that the guilty until proven innocent thing starts to come into play. Because the IRS is used to having people prove things to them instead of them having to prove things to others, they were able to use their power to harm the opponents of the current administration. The information they required those conservative groups to provide was just another aspect of seeing citizens as subjects. It’s a dangerous precedent that other administrations (of both political parties) are likely to use unless it is stopped right now.
I think I told this story about “half a cow.”
An attorney told of representing a “Belgium farmer” from a part of the world where Brett Favre was and still is immensely popular (Mr. Favre is Cajun, but everyone thought him to be Walloon). The poor man was the subject of an IRS audit, and the agent questioned him, “How many cows did you take”, that is, cull from his farm business and serve as steaks and hamburger for his family. Taking a cow from the business for personal consumption needs to count as income.
This naturally suspicious man didn’t want to admit to taking any of the cows for this purpose whereas the IRS, in conducting these audits, has “norms” on what they think a typical farmer does unless you have records to convince them otherwise. My attorney friend tells me that a lot of local bars fail as businesses because they don’t keep adequate records. In the absence of such records, the IRS will go with their “norms” on what a bar is expected to take in receipts, a bar owner is going to owe a rate of tax on that amount of income unless they can provide otherwise, and these guys go bankrupt when they are unable to pay.
So yes, you are required to keep detailed records, but you are not in “trouble” if you don’t have such records, it is just that the IRS will guess at your income making “reasonable person” assumptions. And yes, people who work for the IRS are reasonable people, and part of what my friend does is negotiate on behalf of his clients fair tax payments in such situations.
So after nagging this farmer, “c’mon, you didn’t even take one cow for your personal consumption”, the IRS agent said, “I am putting you down for half a cow.”
The attorney persuaded his client to settle for half a cow in place of going to court over this. But the attorney thought this to be quite humorous as even though he is not a farmer, he and most of the rest of us are aware that cows come in whole numbers rather than fractions.
So Jim, I don’t think the IRS to be evil, I believe them to be conducting a very necessary function in our government, you cannot blame the IRS for the onerous nature of the tax code because that is in the lap of Congress, and that the IRS can be reasonable and accomodating in determining what a person owes in taxes under the law.
That said, I really don’t know why you are digging in your heels defending what is happening over Mr. Koskinen and Ms. Lerner. Apart from the over-the-top claims of some on the Right, we really do have a system of “voluntary” tax compliance that is based on reasonable behavior from both the tax payer and the tax collector. Recent events, which in the absence of the legally mandated records lead a reasonable person to conclude that something fishy is going on. Defending this fishiness undermines our tax system.
And a ‘reasonable person’ would assume that the IRS is blatantly lying to Congress to cover up illegal acts.
Agreed. That is why I am puzzled why these IRS people are “stonewalling”, leading reasonable people to believe that there is a White House connection. Or maybe there is, and that is why you see this.
I’m sure the “norms” are reasonable, but that doesn’t make them right from the innocent until proven guilty perspective. In our system, the prosecutor is supposed to have to prove that the farmer took half a cow for his family. They didn’t have to in this case because the farmer’s lawyer knew his client didn’t have the time or money to really fight it. That the state can do something doesn’t make it right.
But we are not talking about a prosecutor in a court. We are talking about an offer of settlement, the civil law version of pleading to a lesser charge. Just as a public defender “in the hood” has a good idea of what his clients are up to, my friend with 30 years experience had a good idea of the practices of farmers in his community. The “half a cow” was a face-saving concession by both sides in this stand off, but the implication was the farmer was taking meat for his table but would not admit it.
What my friend was trying to tell me is that you either keep accurate business records or the IRS will decide for you the cash flows in your business — based on statistics and audits of other taxpayers. I mean, what is the IRS supposed to do, a person doesn’t keep records and runs their neighborhood bar on a cash basis, there is evidence that a business of this type can bring in a substantial amount of money, but the IRS is to take that person at their word that they didn’t make anything? Substantial sums could be hidden from taxes that way.
What I am saying is that the IRS is not the beast with seven heads and ten horns, but you probably also want to be represented by someone like my friend if “called on the carpet” by the IRS who knows how to negotiate on your behalf. This is what we call the “voluntary” system of tax compliance, that they don’t use an intrusive police state to count every last penny, that there is a willingness to “split the difference”, so that on balance, taxes get paid — half a cow.
If you see an injustice in this, it is not the IRS but Congress that needs to rewrite the law on what is taxable and how it is to be taxed.
But the whole system is based on trust, comity, and cooperation, and what the IRS scandal does is undermine all of that. Contrary to folklore, the IRS is not a bunch of meanies, that is, until now, and this is why this situation should be regarded as a crisis by those who believe in the necessity of paying taxes to obtain the benefits of a strong government.
On a practical level, I see what you are saying. Of course the farmer was taking a cow or two to feed his family and settling with the IRS made perfect sense. Both the farmer and the IRS were being reasonable, so everyone wins.
It’s when things get unreasonable that the guilty until proven innocent thing starts to come into play. Because the IRS is used to having people prove things to them instead of them having to prove things to others, they were able to use their power to harm the opponents of the current administration. The information they required those conservative groups to provide was just another aspect of seeing citizens as subjects. It’s a dangerous precedent that other administrations (of both political parties) are likely to use unless it is stopped right now.
Good news for ever-loyal Baghdad Jim, however:
http://americanthinker.com/2014/06/lois_lerner_fights_back.html