Fraud OK for us IRS says

Well, the IRS shows it’s true colors. “Fraud is OK in our house!”

(Original here)

Thousands of individuals claiming the first-time homebuyer’s $8,000 tax credit may have been attempting to scam the system, including purported four-year-olds and illegal immigrants, according to a watchdog report released on Thursday.

Nearly 74,000 individuals who claimed the tax credit did not appear to qualify for it, at a cost of half a billion to the government, the inspector general for tax administration for the U.S. Treasury Department said in a report to be delivered to lawmakers on Thursday.

“Some of our findings, while preliminary, are somewhat disturbing,” inspector general Russell George said in an interview. Among the most striking instances of fraud include four-year-olds, non-U.S. citizens and IRS employees inappropriately claiming the benefit, he said.

The report comes amid a heated debate about the popular credit, which the real estate and homebuilding industry is fiercely lobbying to protect. It expires at the end of November, and some say it simply doles out cash to those who would have purchased a home without it.

A subcommittee of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives will hear from IRS, IG and other officials at a hearing Thursday.

About 1.4 million tax returns have been filed to take advantage of the credit at a cost to the government of about $10 billion. Many powerful lawmakers want to extend it, including some that back broadening it to all homebuyers and doubling its benefit.

Extension in its current form would cost about a $1 billion a month. A proposal in the Senate to double the credit and extend it until June would cost about $17 billion.

In response to a report last week citing thousands not qualifying properly for the credit, the IRS said it intends to vigorously root out fraud in the program.

An IRS spokesman also said potential for fraud exists whenever a new refundable credit is put in place. The agency has opened 107,000 civil cases related to the credit and identified 167 criminal schemes. Also, they have selected thousands of returns for those claiming the credit for deeper audits.

The report finds that 582 taxpayers under the age of 18 claimed about $4 million using the credit, with the youngest being 4 years old.

It further faults the IRS for failing to take its advice that a third party be required to document an individual claiming the credit actually purchased a home.

The IRS refuted some of the findings of the IG, and argued for example that some findings are premature because some taxpayers may eventually purchase a home.

Under the law, the credit should be claimed after purchase.

The IRS has responded to some of the IG’s advice, including installing computer filters so those who filed for a home mortgage interest deduction could not also claim the first-time tax credit.

“The IRS is having a very mixed bag in terms of its implementation of this important tool to help the economy,” George said.

A 2008 law created a $7,500 tax credit for those who haven’t purchased a home in three years and who meet certain income limits, with the intention of jump starting the moribund housing market. A 2009 law boosted the credit to $8,000.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, want to extend the credit but the housing chief for the Obama administration on Tuesday expressed doubts the United States could afford to extend the credit.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said the administration would decide in coming weeks whether it backs an extension.

Once the Cat is Out of the Bag…

… you start saying stupid things like it is a basic human right to have high-speed internet.

(Original here)

Finland has become the first country in the world to declare broadband Internet access a legal right.
Starting in July, telecommunication companies in the northern European nation will be required to provide all 5.2 million citizens with Internet connection that runs at speeds of at least 1 megabit per second.

The one-megabit mandate, however, is simply an intermediary step, said Laura Vilkkonen, the legislative counselor for the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

The country is aiming for speeds that are 100 times faster — 100 megabit per second — for all by 2015.

“We think it’s something you cannot live without in modern society. Like banking services or water or electricity, you need Internet connection,” Vilkkonen said.

Finland is one of the most wired in the world; about 95 percent of the population have some sort of Internet access, she said. But the law is designed to bring the Web to rural areas, where geographic challenges have limited access until now.

“Universal service is every citizen’s subjective right,” Vilkkonen said.

Should fast Internet access be everyone’s legal right?

It is a view shared by the United Nations, which is making a big push to deem Internet access a human right.

In June, France’s highest court declared such access a human right. But Finland goes a step further by legally mandating speed.

On the other hand, the United States is the only industrialized nation without a national policy to promote high-speed broadband, according to a study released in August by the Communications Workers of America, the country’s largest media union.

Forty-six percent of rural households do not subscribe to broadband, and usage varies based on income, the study found.

In February, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is expected to submit a national plan to Congress. The FCC says that expanding service will require subsidies and investment of as much as $350 billion — much higher than the $7.2 billion President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package has set aside for the task.

Liberal Mom Raises a Conservative Son

So I told my mom last night, “How are you a Democrat? You vote Democrat but you talk to me every week on the phone like a Conservative. You raised me as a Conservative by instilling in me very Conservative values. You are a Conservative, you just don’t know it.”

She laughed.

Admittedly, this is something that has long since bothered – well maybe it doesn’t bother me, it more-or-less intrigues me. How can one vote for something all their lives but on a very personal level, they are very much something else? My mother is a wonderful person. I am very much like her and this is probably due to her strong desire to raise me with all she had. She was very active in my life, maybe a little bit too much sometimes if you know what I mean. But she is a Liberal and I am a Conservative…

She is fiscally conservative. I don’t know if she is that way because she has to be or because that is who she is. We never had money growing up. The magic answer to anything new was normally “no.” After a while I didn’t even bother to ask. I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to her to deny my request, but because I understood that the family could not afford it. I don’t remember her ever specifically saying this fact, but I do remember her diligently cutting out coupons and searching for sales. I remember getting cheap shoes and hoping they lasted, but I never knew there was a difference in shoes until other kids pointed it out to me. We never went out on the town – and if it was, it was to Taco Bell off the 69 cent menu (which was a real treat). Maybe she did, but I never heard her begging for help from people either – she just went out and worked multiple jobs. Or even better, worked one job while we were at school that way she could be with us kids at home.

She believes in personal responsibility. I remember my Mother and Father sitting me down one day and telling me, “If you do something wrong, we are going to let you pay the consequences. Even if that means jail. However, if you did nothing wrong, then we will stand by you until the end.” I tested both ends of that spectrum growing up. On the negative end I decided to go out with some friends and tear someone’s bushes up by jumping on them. The neighbor called my parents and my parent’s delivered me to the owner of the bush to do whatever he wanted. Luckily for me, he was a friend of the family and he just had me apologize and clean up the mess. The other boys that tore the bush up with me, their parents were called but they never came to help or even to apologize. Maybe this is another instance where I learned that I was being raised in a special way. On the other end of that spectrum I was blamed for tearing up a school textbook on the school bus one day. They stood up for me even though the school was ready to suspend me.

She believed in competition. She always was pitting myself against my siblings in athletics and school – especially school. I remember her saying, “If you don’t keep your grades up, your brother’s and sisters are going to and then get good jobs and then they aren’t going to help you. ” It was obvious that she believed in excelling in whatever task you did to “get ahead of the competition.” It was never, nah, sit back and coast and someone will help you out or bail you out, it was always “if you don’t do it, then nobody’s going to do it for you.” It was never mean. In fact, it was kind of fun to compete.  My all-star/select siblings in multiple sports always beat me in sports but I had them in academics. But they never gave up chasing my grades and I never quit chasing their sports records.

She was an individualist. It was obvious that she loved all of us but it was also obvious that she loved each of us on an individual level and most definitely not out of obligation. I remember camping and all of us were a team to set up camp and each had their own little jobs. Sometimes, the job was to just stay out of the way because you were cranky with a full diaper. Ha! But same back home. We were recognized on our own merits. I don’t think I realized it at all at the time, but I see it now. I never heard any sort of bigoted comment. If she was mad, then it was at that person, not their race or their gender or anything.

I remember little things that my mother said to me growing up all the time and I always wonder, how can a fairly dedicated Democrat say something that is so utterly Conservative in thought? I wish I could remember them so I could post them right now because some of them had a very large impact on me being who I am today.

I ended up telling her a little later in the conversation that I think she is simply a Democrat because that is what has been taught to her. For whatever reason in the past people were generally taught that Democrats are “for the people/workers” and that Republicans are “for businesses/businessmen.” Since she has always been a worker, she has also maintained that thought. Her parents (my grandparents) are also Democrats, so it seems that political affiliations run in the family (although I’d argue that my grandparents are Conservative too).

With that said, it seems that in some of the mid-generations the pseudo Communistic bourgeois (R) vs proletariat (D) is there. I wonder how many people of older generations as well as the new voters have really taken a look at both parties and realized that in reality, they are the same with very small differences – both still war (to go or to continue funding), both are still fiscally irresponsible, both take rights/liberties away, both don’t represent their constituents, and both vote on things/laws that are unConstitutional.

So how is it that a Conservative thinker was raised by a Democratic mother again? Where is the disconnect?

For the readers of Democraticdiva.com

I came to Democraticdiva.com to debate. I ask questions because I want clarification. It seems that the hostess, Donna, did not like my questions…

First she ignored me (here). Then she half-answered my questions (here).  Then she started calling names (here). Then she starts making fun of my screen name and continued to avoid the question (here). More avoidance of the questions (here). Then she tells me to DIE and starts slandering (here). Then she goes to my blog, writes a post on her page declaring me a troll (here).

Then she bans me from posting. So much for letting me defend myself. So if you are there and thinking that I have run-off, this is not true, I was banned and cannot post.

So for the record – yes, I do like Ron Paul. I like him because he stands for the same general principles that I do, most notably, the Constitution. I wouldn’t call myself a fanboy though. A Ron Paul fanboy is one who says they will vote for RP in 2012 even though RP says he will not run. I am into RP because of his principles, not because Ron Paul is Ron Paul. There are many other people out there that I believe have the same principles as RP and I will give them a nod when the time comes.

Also on record – I believe in rules and logic. I am not a birther, I just want the rules to be followed. Since Obama does not want transparency (just get us the long form birth certificate) then I have reason to doubt his validity. I think this is logical and fair. If he can provide that (and he can, he just has to ask) then there is nothing else to discuss. Period.

And lastly, I am far from a troll. I just ask questions. If asking questions is troll behavior, then we are all trolls.

Thanks.

Moore is an Absolute Hypocrite!

Michael Moore, director of other fine pieces such as Sicko, Roger & Me, and Bowling for Columbine. In these movies, Moore determines that health care is better in Communist Cuba, decides that GM ruined Detroit (forget Unions!), and says that guns are bad and the reason we are so violent in America.

His newest movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, is a crock of &*(@#$!

Why? How can you make a movie bitching about Capitalism when you are making a movie to make money. If he REALLY wanted to shun Capitalism, then he would have made the movie for free, now wouldn’t he?

But he didn’t. He didn’t because he is a stupid hypocrite.

Capitalism did nothing for me.

But I do well, BECAUSE MY FILMS DO WELL.

What an absolute imbecile! I feel like stealing his movie off the shelf when it comes out and burning it.

NewsBusted 01SEP09

Yet another good NewsBusted.

NewsBusted 28AUG09

Enjoy.

Dog Refuses Handouts from Obama

If an animal is not accepting handouts from Obama, why are you?

Bailouts in a Sheep’s Clothing

Yay for bailouts!

Obama Takes the Wrong Pill

Anyone here like the Matrix? If you do, you will understand my curiosity of this quote.

If there’s a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that’s going to make you well? -Barack Obama (link)

And as Morpheus said to Neo.

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. (link)

Why did he pick a red pill vs a blue pill analogy instead of “pill 1 vs 2″ or “pill A vs B”?

Coincidence that he “took” the blue pill? Probably, but ever so truthful in light of the movie.