Tag: irs

IRS accused of stealing 60 million medical records.

It just ain’t Barack Obama’s day.  Or week.  Or month. Or year…

The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.

According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.

But, hey, trust them with Obamacare tax enforcement, right?

Right?

Moe Lane

PS: Don’t look at me: I voted for the other guy.

Eric Holder may have an *exquisitely* painful day today over at House Judiciary.

I know, I know: you are wounded unto death about such a thing occurring. Wounded unto death.

Attorney General Eric Holder will testify before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday, where Republicans say they’ll grill him about the Justice Department’s secret review of Associated Press phone records and the IRS targeting of conservative groups for extra tax scrutiny, among other issues.

The oversight hearing had already been scheduled for 1 p.m. on May 15. But Republicans now plan to use the time to address the two issues that came to light this week.

The real question is, though: will it just be the Republicans piling on? Possibly not: the National Journal is kind of hinting* that maybe Democrats on Judiciary will be wanting to put some distance between them and the Obama administration’s exciting new game Wheel of Scandal. The AP thing would be the place for House Democrats to do it, too. Of the (current) Big Three scandals going on right now (Benghazi, IRS, AP): the narrative on Benghazi is locked down among Democrats. No way are any of them going to admit that the White House deliberately lied about the origins of that attack because they were in the middle of a Presidential election. The IRS issue is kind of problematical: the Democratic progressive base simply seems intellectually incapable of understanding why it looks horrifically bad when the IRS confesses that they targeted the administration’s political enemies. Best not to push that one too far… but the AP? Yeah, that’s reasonably safe. Particularly since the House passed a federal shield bill in 2009 that would have protected all those fine, upstanding journalists. So, yeah, they’re on the side of the angels on that one. Continue reading Eric Holder may have an *exquisitely* painful day today over at House Judiciary.

Jon Stewart, meet IRS-derived meltdown. Meltdown, Jon Stewart.

This particular event surpasses even Stewart’s hysterical reaction to Scott Brown winning the MA-SEN special election.

Now never mind for a moment that Stewart has a somewhat, ah, slanted opinion about Benghazi; also put to one side for the moment his obligatory smacks at the right wing. The point is this: Barry, you are [expletive deleted]. Jon Stewart ain’t going to carry the President’s water on this one – which means that it’s REALLY bad – so Barack Obama might as well start to process of determining who to fire. I think that it’s going to take at least a Cabinet member being burned to cauterize this one…

#rsrh QotD, Doing Unto Others As We’ve Been Done By Edition.

The New York Times, discussing the alleged politicization of the IRS in an election year:

Jay Sekulow, a conservative lawyer known more for his stands on religious freedom than for his tax work, said he is representing 16 Tea Party groups that are claiming harassment by the I.R.S., and the number is growing. He said he intended to demand an explanation from the Treasury Department on Wednesday for what he called “McCarthyism” tactics and that he would contact Republican lawmakers this week.

“This is obviously a coordinated effort by the I.R.S. to stifle these Tea Party and Tea Party-affiliated groups, and to stifle free speech activities,” Mr. Sekulow said. “It’s as onerous as what they did to the N.A.A.C.P. in the 1950s, and I plan to make that point.”

Continue reading #rsrh QotD, Doing Unto Others As We’ve Been Done By Edition.

So, *which* Lynn Woolsey wants to use the IRS to go after the Catholic Church?

Via Jim Geraghty, and note that it’s the title to her article:

Woolsey: IRS should look at bishops

But I’m curious: which Rep. Lynn Woolsey (Democrat.  Dem-o-crat.) wants to have the IRS investigate the Roman Catholic Church in response to the latter’s support of the Stupak Amendment?

  • Is it the Rep. Lynn Woolsey (Democrat.  Dem-o-crat.) who is the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus?  If so, is it now the CPC’s official position that the IRS should investigate the Roman Catholic Church?
  • Is it the Rep. Lynn Woolsey (Democrat.  Dem-o-crat.) of California’s Sixth Congressional District?  If so, will she be campaigning next year on the need for investigating the Roman Catholic Church?
  • Or is it just private citizen Lynn Woolsey (Democrat.  Dem-o-crat.)?  If so, then why did the Politico think that her opinion on investigating the Roman Catholic Church was relevant?

Moe Lane

PS: Is Rep. Woolsey’s position that the IRS should investigate the Roman Catholic Church shared by Vice President Joseph Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi?

Crossposted to RedState.

‘Shared responsibility payment’ imposing the poor on health care.

At least, that’s the Senate version of the Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions committee bill on health care rationing: the House version has the elementary decency to call it a ‘tax.’

Legal Insurrection walks through the procedure: the short version is that both versions of the bill require that employers give the IRS information on who they’re insuring, during what periods, and… some-things-to-be-determined later. If that last clause doesn’t worry you, then why they want that information should:

The House bill provides for a tax on people who do not have acceptable coverage at “any time” during the tax year. House bill section 401 provides for a new section 59B (at pp. 167-168) of the Internal Revenue Code:

(a) TAX IMPOSED.—In the case of any individual who does not meet the requirements of subsection (d) at any time during the taxable year, there is hereby imposed a tax equal to 2.5 percent of the excess of—
(1) the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income for the taxable year, over
(2) the amount of gross income specified in section 6012(a)(1) with respect to the taxpayer.

The Senate version is similar, although the tax is called a “shared responsibility payment” not a tax.

Continue reading ‘Shared responsibility payment’ imposing the poor on health care.

IRS puts tax lien on Kerry’s 2004 campaign.

(Via NTCNews‘ sidebar) Good luck with getting that resolved, Senator:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service has filed a $819,848 tax lien against Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, but Kerry on Wednesday blamed an IRS clerical error for the claim and said his campaign owes no tax penalties.

The Massachusetts Democrat said the IRS mishandled payroll tax forms that he said were correctly filed by his campaign in 2005.

Apparently the junior Senator from Massachusetts is finding it impossible to make the IRS see reason on this issue. For the record, I believe him; there’s precisely the “But we jumped through those hoops already” puzzled/confused/warily exasperated tone coming from his staff that one associates with dealing with a government bureaucracy with the bit in its teeth. The truly interesting part? Usually a Senator has enough power to get an honest-to-God mistake rectified; which might say something about the validity of Kerry’s case, but probably says rather more of the Senator’s influence.

I would like to think of this as a teachable moment for Senator Kerry about various aspects of our tax code: only, well…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.