Posted on 10/24/2011 10:01:20 AM PDT by reaganaut1
This Treasury Inspector General report gives us yet another reason to end the education tax credits:
17.5% of all the money “paid” is fraudulent. Figure 2 tells us that there were $18.3B in education tax credits, and figure 3, shown below tells us that $3.2B of it was fraudulent.
Super-committee, take note, killing the tax credits would yield significant savings (probably around $20B a year, though how this is scored by the CBO depends on the currently legislated future of the programs). Moreover, this will have virtually no effect on college affordability (tax credits and state appropriations are the types of aid that are most likely to be swallowed whole by colleges without helping to offset tuition).
For the more liberally minded, the tax credits are regressive, with the rich getting more than the poor. For the conservatively minded, this is a $20B a year or so subsidy to those bastions of liberalism that could be used to forestall impending tax increases instead.
To sum up, end the education tax credits. End them now.
“1/6...are fraudulent”
Doesn’t that mean that 5/6 ARE LEGITIMATE?
How about a novel idea.....don’t assume that all of us out here taking the education credit are wealthy parents with kids at a 50K school. In fact, the credit has to pass an income test (be below a certain adjusted gross income) in order to qualify.
Lots of us are just regular lower middle class income families trying to get our kids through state colleges and universities.
Because I missed it.
/johnny
Once you find it we can talk.
Report: Millions are wrongly claiming education tax credit
The IRS might have distributed more than $3 billion in wrongly claimed education tax credits to millions of taxpayers, a federal audit released Thursday has found.
In all, the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration said 2.1 million taxpayers could have claimed the American Opportunity Tax Credit, which was created by the 2009 stimulus package, in error — and that $3.2 billion, evenly divided between refundable and non-refundable credits, might have been disbursed.
The report additionally found that most of the erroneous claims came from tax returns filed by paid preparers, that the vast majority of those claims had no proof that the taxpayer was in school, and that 250 prisoners had even claimed the credit.
good times...
To me this is the problem with much of the tax code. Why should other taxpayers have to support decisions made by individuals or more likely, why should we continue to increase the deficit for decisions that individals make about their families.
Cut tax rates and eliminate all deductions and credits. Maybe have a standard deduction for the very bottom of the income scale but everyone would equally benefit but if you made less than a certain amount, the dedcution would mean you don't pay taxes that year. Beyond that, it is just redistribution of wealth.
The Northwest Ordinance was pre-Constitution (by a few months) in 1787. It was enacted under the Articles of Confederation. It was, however, later affirmed by Congress. What does this have to do with the cost of bread?
No one is trying to pass a northwest ordinance today. But education is an ongoing federal scam.
/johnny
Are you telling me that George Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and all the others were “criminals”?
So, on what basis did the Congress act?
But as was pointed out, the ordinance was promulgated under the Articles of Confederation, and not the Constitution.
/johnny
The 'congress' that passed that was a Congress of the Confederation.
Not acting under the Constitution, since it pre-dated it.
/johnny
Fur shur the FOUNDERS who'd just written the new Constitution were deep into getting the NW Territory organized and into private hands ~ and FREE OF SLAVERY!
You might take a very good look at the Confederation constitution ~ those things weren’t provided for there either.
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