Remember the IRS scandal? I mean the one about how the Internal Revenue Service has been monkey-wrenching the applications for tax-exempt status submitted by politically non-leftward organizations (Tax Prof Blog has the latest).
But politically motivated clogging of an application process is just one way that the IRS abuses us. Victims of its normal forms of abuse have also been coming forward lately, seeing that they now have at least a temporarily receptive audience.
One such is Jeffrey Black, former employee of the Federal Air Marshal Service, who has long tried to fix the problems he sees with the Air Marshals. It seems that not every colleague appreciates it.
After retiring in 2010, Black appeared in a documentary (“Please Remove Your Shoes”) about the pseudo-security measures we have to endure at the airport. Why not? He couldn’t be fired any more, right? But the day the documentary premiered — “almost to the hour” — the IRS notified him that he was being audited. It also slapped a lien on his home.
In the end, their investigation turned up $480 that Black owed the IRS, which he paid; and $8,300 that the IRS owed Black, which IRS didn’t pay.
“Being a veteran of extensive retaliation . . . I am not surprised about this,” he told CNN. “It is basically the only way they can still . . . retaliate against me after I retired.”
The IRS denies that audits are ever politically motivated.
They deny many things.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.