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Tax counsel for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Wednesday that the billionaire businessman has been under continuous IRS audit for more than a decade. In a letter released by the Trump campaign to demonstrate that the candidate is in fact under audit, Sheri Dillon and William Nelson wrote that his personal federal tax returns “have been under continuous examination by the Internal Revenue Service since 2002, consistent with the IRS’s practice for large and complex businesses.” …

Donald Trump, Christian Martyr I was starting to doze off. The debate was all but over, and the exhaustion from the day was catching up with me, as was the scotch. The rush of finally seeing the candidates go after Trump in a serious way was wearing off replaced by a mix of dread and resignation that it may all be too little too late. (Note: I don't think it is, and I won't be giving into despair either, for reasons Charlie explains here.) I was only half listening when Donald Trump came into the spin room on CNN to...

Donald Trump claims he can't release his tax returns until he's done being audited by the IRS. But the federal agency on Friday said that's not true. "Federal privacy rules prohibit the IRS from discussing individual tax matters. Nothing prevents individuals from sharing their own tax information," a spokesperson for the IRS said in a statement. The Republican presidential front-runner's refusal to release his tax documents came up repeatedly during Thursday's GOP debate, hours after former Republican nominee Mitt Romney suggested that Trump's reluctance stems from the possibility there might be a "bombshell" in his taxes. "I want to [release...

Or maybe because, to quote Ben Carson, they’re looking at the fruit salad of his life. Fresh off of getting chased around the arena by a couple of lions, Donald Trump tried to explain to CNN’s Chris Cuomo why the IRS audits him so routinely, the excuse he gave during the debate for not releasing his tax returns. Trump claimed to be the victim of religious persecution:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO “I’m always audited by the IRS, which I think is very unfair. Maybe because of religion, maybe because of something else, maybe because I am doing this,...

Dr. Carason: I never had an audit until I spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast. And then all of the sudden they came in and said, "We just want to look at your real estate dealings." And then they didn't find anything. And then they took a look at the whole year. And they didn't find anything. And then they looked at the next year and they didn't find anything. And they won't find anything. The fact is the IRS is not honest and we have to get rid of them.

No one wants to be audited, so knowing how long your tax return can be attacked is important. The statute of limitations on taxes is a fundamental rule allowing taxpayers to eventually cut off their exposure. It can be pretty satisfying to say to the IRS, “sorry, you’re too late.” But this year, that will be a little harder due to an expansion of the IRS’s power to audit for extra years. Traditionally, the primary IRS statute of limitations was three years. But there are many exceptions that give the IRS six years or longer. Several of those exceptions are...

Six months ago, the US discovered that China hacked into the records of the Office of Personnel Management, stealing the excruciatingly personal data from everyone employed in the federal government, and everyone granted a security clearance too. At the time, it was called the Pearl Harbor of cyberwarfare, but later it turned out that the hack lasted over a year, not a single Sunday morning. OPM didn’t even have an IT department until the year before the hack began, which is why OPM had outsourced its IT management to a firm based in … China. The true scope of...

Raising $100 billion a year of climate finance by 2020 is challenging, but possible through mechanisms including carbon markets, domestic carbon taxes and a variety of international transportation taxes, a United Nations advisory group said in a report Friday. Earlier this year, the UN's Ban established the panel, which includes U.S. National Economic Council Director Larry Summers, billionaire financier George Soros and Deutsche Bank vice-chairman Caio Koch-Weser. The financing will be used to support mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries--in particular, for the poorest and most vulnerable communities.

A federal judge ordered the IRS to turn over any documents that indicated White House requests for private taxpayer information. Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued the order, eliminating the IRS argument that they couldn't comply because taxpayer information is private. Washington Times: “This court questions whether section 6103 should or would shield records that indicate confidential taxpayer information was misused, or that government officials made improper attempts to access that information,” the judge wrote in denying the IRS’s request to close out the case. The ruling marks yet another federal judge who has ordered the Obama administration to be more...

The Oregon Secretary of State's office was quick to assert to The Oregonian/OregonLive's Ted Sickinger that its inquiry into the state energy department's chronically troubled tax-credit program is "not an audit." Which raises the obvious question: Why not?

Everywhere I look nowadays liberals are screaming about "bullying.” It's the liberal cause "du jour." Liberals hate bullies.Well I know a very big bad bully. He’s the worst bully in all the land. His name is Barack Obama. Funny enough, liberals don’t care about his vicious bullying. Liberal hypocrites just make absurd excuses for his bullying, because they agree with his politics. Isn't it ironic? The worst bullies of all are liberals- the very people complaining about the traumatic effects of bullying.Well I have a personal story that proves what bullies Obama and his socialist cabal really are. You see...

TO those of us who fear the I.R.S. and the possibility of a tax audit, it sounded like good news. In March, the I.R.S. commissioner, John A. Koskinen, told employees that because of budget cuts, the agency “had to do less with less” — reduce taxpayer services, delay refunds and do fewer audits. But alas, the outcome is not what it seems. Those who do get caught in the I.R.S.’s net may be in for a terrible time and lose some of the rights set out in last year’s new taxpayer bill of rights. Examiners for the I.R.S. are giving...

A state legislative auditor’s report found that the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) failed to ensure the eligibility of participants in large public assistance programs and that it did not always perform timely inspections of child care centers. The findings mirror those of other recent auditor reports and could fuel calls to reform the way state administrators verify eligibility for programs that together cost nearly $7 billion a year in federal money. For more than a decade, the legislative auditor has reported flaws in the way the state determines who qualifies for Medical Assistance, which provides health insurance to...

If you're being audited by the Internal Revenue Service this year, you're either an unlucky or extremely unfortunate individual. Budget cuts have steadily decreased the number of IRS audits from 1.4 million in 2013 to 1.2 million last year. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told reporters in January that the number of audits would fall again this year after continued belt-tightening. With the IRS budget falling 17% in the past five years, the number of audits this year is expected to hover around 1 million. Koskinen noted that his agency has left an estimated $6 billion to $8 billion on the...

Complete Headline: Where’s the Money? Vermont Auditor Reports Jonathan Gruber Overbilled State by At Least $48,000, Calls in Attorney General In a 54-page memo, Vermont State Auditor Doug Hoffer confirms that embattled Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber overbilled the state in invoices he submitted for work Gruber claims was performed by research assistants. “The evidence suggests that Dr. Gruber overstated the hours worked by the RA, but we have insufficient documentation to say any more about his inconsistencies and questionable billing practices. I have referred the matter to the Attorney General for his consideration, which is standard procedure in such circumstances,”...

A long-running campaign to fully subject the Federal Reserve to outside review could come down to a handful of moderate Democrats. The “Audit the Fed” movement has grown from an oddball pet project of former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) into legislation that was passed with broad bipartisan majorities in the House two Congresses running, before stalling in Democratic-led Senates. With Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) looking to follow in his father’s footsteps with a new audit bill, the prospects of a GOP-controlled Congress actually sending a measure to the president is more real than it has ever been before. But clearing...

Sen. Rand Paul isn't happy that the Federal Reserve is mobilizing against his legislation that would subject the central bank's monetary policy decisions to an audit. "It is alarming that the Federal Reserve, which was granted Monopoly money-making power, is now specifically trying to stop my legislation," the Kentucky Republican wrote in a column published by the conservative publication Breitbart Tuesday. "The Fed, with unlimited ability to print money, now prints that money to lobby against congressional oversight," Paul added. "It is a disgrace and every citizen in the land should rise up and say: We the people are in...

It looks like the Federal Reserve is starting to worry about Senator Rand Paul’s plan to audit the central bank. The way the Hill newspaper, which covers Congress, puts it this week is that the Fed is “lashing out” at Mr. Paul’s plan, which, it said, could gain traction now that the Republicans are in control of the Senate as well as the House. It quotes the president of the Dallas Fed, Richard Fisher, as demanding, in an interview, “Who in their right mind would ask the Congress of the United States — who can’t cobble together a fiscal policy...

The Federal Reserve is lashing out at Sen. Rand Paul’s plan to give Congress more oversight over the central bank, a proposal that could gain traction in the new Republican-led Congress. The Kentucky Republican reintroduced his “Audit the Fed” legislation last month with 30 co-sponsors, including other potential 2016 GOP hopefuls, Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Marco Rubio (Fla.). [snip] On Wednesday, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester criticized the legislation as “misguided” during public remarks in Columbus, Ohio. “They really are about allowing political considerations to influence monetary policy decisions,” Mester said in her speech. “This would be a tremendous...

Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz might end up running against each other for the Republican presidential nomination, but they can agree on one thing: their distrust of the Federal Reserve. On Wednesday, the two Republican senators introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act which Mr. Paul has been pushing for some time.Republicans have questioned the Fed’s moves to stimulate the economy since the financial crisis, arguing that the expansion of its balance sheet will create economic instability. In 2011, Gov. Rick Perry called the Fed’s monetary policies potentially “treasonous” and said that Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman at the...