Showing posts with label taxes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label taxes. Show all posts

Jun 30, 2014

The Faith-Based Economists Are Hoping For Dire Results And Collapse of Full Faith And Credit Of America

EndOfAmerica.com? HighlyDoubtIt.com!

Chicken Littles of the financial markets claim that they have secret knowledge that tomorrow is going to be the beginning of an economic collapse of the American economy and the U.S. dollar. This is the financial equivalent to the religious fundamentalists that were equally assure of the rapture back on May 21st 2011 and will be shown to be equally disassociated from reality.  At the heart of the concern is that Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), that seeks out to tax the foreign investments of American citizens greater than $50,000 that are currently in foreign tax havens. The fear is that the IRS attempting to extract taxes from tax havens with American clients will cause capital flight from the investments priced in American dollars and cause international financial firms and governments to no longer hold the American dollar as a reserve currency, though that outcome may become a reality in the future it won't be due to the implementation of FATCA. There is data set of Chinese government attempting to corner the market on gold, silver and other rare metals to back their yuan, while the same individuals will decry any attempt by the U.S. government to take any intervention into the American economy, as if we should take our lead from an authoritarian socialist government but do so without any government action. Or what these Chicken Littles would likely prefer, let the tax avoiders that are affected by FATCA continue to welch on the obligations of paying what Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said were the dues of civilization.

The ill-conceived solution to the non-existent calamity? Buy gold bullion, buy gold coins, buy gold futures. Yes we should return the American economy to the gold standard where those that have already accumulated vast fortunes are protected from inflationary effect of fiat monetary policy and those that had the misfortune to depend solely on their own labor as a means of economic enrichment will be in a race to the bottom to attain the crumbs of those that have the gold. To clamour for the bad old days of a gold standard or even bi-metalism is an exercise in historically ignorance. To voluntarily place ourselves back onto a cross of gold will not be to the benefit of the masses, but only expedite the concentration of wealth that is considered a positive outcome in the minds of the predeterministic economic outlook of the libertarians and Anarcho-Capitalists, for they operate under the rubric that if you don't already have money then you certainly don't deserve even subsistence standard of living. 

Pointing towards contradictory data points such as for-profit companies are far better stock purchases than that of state owned operations like Petrobras (Brazil), Gazprom (Russia),  or China National Gold Group Corporation while professing that BRICS countries will abandon the American dollar as a reserve currency; it is mutually exclusive that the American economy bolstered by the largest and least restrained corporations somehow is being abandoned by developing countries because of lack of value and inflationary monetary policy that the dollar is to be deemed worthless, while state controlled enterprises are at the same time too valuable and valueless making those countries delink from the 800 pound economic gorrilla which the U.S. is. American economy having the least regulations. The American government retracting it's obligations to continue market sustainability as well as consumer protections has the response from the 'free marketeers' it not enough. The catch-22 from the 'free marketeers' is that when the economy fails, it will be rationalized as the economy still has too much regulation no matter how little regulation is enumerated or enforced (laws on the books not being enforced by SEC is a assumed result by market makers on Wall Street).

So tomorrow there will be an absence of calamity (except for the millionaires that owe millions in taxes, with their nest egg hidden off-shore), and continue calls for elimination government defense against the concentration of wealth. I didn't even need to look into my crystal ball for that prediction.

May 20, 2013

IRS so called scandal

George Will said on ABC's This Week "A Tennessee group was told your entitlement to this status was contingent upon telling us the names of the high school and college students that you trained to participate in politics." The status that Mr. Will has his undies in a twist over is the nonprofit apolitical 501c4 organizations having their tax exempt status being delayed. If the Tennessee organization had nothing to hide, they could have sought out a 527 status and avoided the delay, instead decided to avoid contributors disclosures and obfuscate where their money is coming from denying the American public their right to know who is attempting to persuade public policy. 

There is a common theme in the conservatives' response across internet forums and social media, that liberals would not stand for the same actions if IRS used the same scrutiny on liberal nonprofits. No one needs to imagine what would occur if a Republican administration used the IRS to harass and audit liberal nonprofits; since it occurred under Bush against the NAACP, Planned Parenthood, and others. The right-wing complains about delays in being granted tax-exempt status; what conservative organization was denied 501c4 status? I can tell you which progressive organization was denied, Emerge America as they transformed their 527 organizations to 501c4 was denied the only benefit of avoiding to disclosing their contributors. The Tea Party and Patriot movement creating nonprofit organizations explicitly for politically purposes were still able to retain financial contributors anonymity despite that is neither the letter of the law or the spirit of the law to grant the status to such poltical organizations.

Much can be understood by the modus operandi, if tax-exempt 501c4 organizations intended for apolitical purposes to promote the general welfare in comparison to tax-exempt 527 organizations intended for purely political purposes, then the reason for political organizations seeking out 501c4 does so for the only distinction between 527 an 501c4: not disclosing political contributions.


Stephen Colbert famously and poignantly mocked the tax statuses of Super PACs and their deceiptive partners in crime by creating Colbert Super PAC and 501c4 Colbert Super PAC SHH! to hide who contributed to the his fund. Unlike the Tea Party and Patriot movement 501c4, Stephen Colbert actually had apolitical purposes  to educate and entertain the public about the absurdity of the campaign finance and the tax code.

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/14/when_the_irs_targeted_liberals/