Who loves you baby?
Posted on 06/28/2014 7:40:33 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday evening, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen revealed that a number of taxpayers are confused by his agency’s conduct. Like the IRS, they would also like to claim that corrupted or lost data prevents them from complying with the tax collection agency’s requests with for several-year-old documents. Koskinen told Blitzer that what may come to be known as “The Lerner Defense” is and has been acceptable to the IRS.
During Thursday’s interview, an eager Twitter user submitted a question to Blitzer which he helpfully read on the air. “Why shouldn’t tax payers use the crashed hard drive excuse when undergoing an IRS audit?” the user asked.
“A number of them have already done that, and the question has been ‘Is there a dual standard?’” Koskinen observed.
“We, historically – if a taxpayer has lost electronic records – have said ‘If you have other indications and evidence of what went on, we’ll take that from you,’” Koskinen continued. “If you lose a document, it doesn’t mean you lose the argument.”
“We actually work with taxpayers to say, ‘We’ll look at other evidence,’ like the 24,000 emails [from Lois Lerner the IRS already submitted to congressional investigators],” the commissioner added.
He concluded by noting that the IRS “will support you” and “you won’t have any problem” if the average taxpayer undergoing an audit behaves in the precise same fashion that the IRS has over the course of the investigation into the admitted targeting of conservative groups.
You might want to hold onto those old tax filings before taking Mr. Koskinen at his word just yet. Something tells me “The Lerner Defense” won’t be as readily accepted by IRS investigators as the commissioner suggests.
Later in the interview, Koskinen appeared to backtrack on his insistence before a congressional committee that the IRS’s conduct did not merit him offering them an apology. Apparently, he determined that an apology to the American people was due:
“The improper criteria used to highlight organizations for investigation just by their name was a mistake,” Koskinen said. “I apologize to anybody who ever had their applications held up needlessly. Everybody needs to be confident that the IRS is going to treat them fairly no matter who they are. Republicans, Democrats, whatever organization they belong to. So it’s a serious matter.”
That beady-eyed little Devil's ogre is going to have to prove that! Either show substantive documented truthful evidence complete with taxpayer's endorsement or STFU. Arrogant, lying little POS.
Well, they HAD the evidence but the hard rive was lost on a tragic boating accident.
I’m still looking for the Semmens byline....
Many moons ago, a friend lost his mobile home in a fire. All his expense records burned up. Do you think the IRS had any mercy in that situation? (Hell no. They kept demanding the receipts—the ones that burned up).
Who loves you baby?
The man is an arrogant lying little troll. Nothing he says can be believed. It requires a “willing suspension of disbelief” to even listen to him. If I had the power, he would be in prison.
The dog ate my emails.
July 4th. Independence from what?
The peon, in the form of a tax-payer, does not have the privilege of the Lerner Defense.
It is limited to brilliant, intellectual, really-really smart geniuses like Ms. Lerner and Mr. Koskinen.
See, ya know?
IMHO
So what happened?
I don’t know. Last I saw him, he was still battling with them.
My hard drive and guns fell overboard.
*grabs a hammer and starts hitting his hard drive*
Wish me luck!
Both of Oregon’s US senators are complicit in this scandal.
The IRS will accept that you can’t find the documents... The receipts etc. would be to prove that you DO NOT owe money.
You just can’t prove you don’t owe, so you have to pay.
The IRS wont accept a credit card statement as a receipt for an expenditure. You must have the original receipt from the company you purchased the expenditure from. The IRS commissioner is lying just like Lois Lerner.
bogus IRS argument, of course. The IRS assumes you owe the tax (guilty) until and unless you prove otherwise. So if your documents are gone, you owe the tax. The purpose of the documents is to prove you don’t.
The appropriate analogy would be to ASSUME Lerner and the rest of the IRS is GUILTY of crimes. If the emails prove them innocent, fine. The fact they are “gone”, means they are guilty of the crimes. That would be an apples to apples comparison of a taxpayer dealing with the IRS, and the IRS dealing with Congress.
Gee, the only difference is the taxpayer is guilty until he/she can prove their innocence when dealing with the IRS.
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