The present federal income tax code creates a massive amount of wealth inequality by allowing the extremely wealthy to escape taxation by passing its wealth, tax-free to future generations, who again, with proper planning, can pass it to their heirs, tax-free. These tax provisions allow the wealthiest 10% of Americans to control $93.8 trillion of the nation’s wealth, more than double the $40.3 trillion in the hands of the remaining 90% of Americans.” By returning to a more transparent and fair tax code, the government can raise the money it needs to operate, create more jobs for its people, and lower the marginal tax rates for all Americans.

This transformation can be accomplished by simplicity.

First, to create jobs, eliminate income taxes on corporations. Currently, the tax code allows corporations to manipulate the tax system to obtain government subsidies and disadvantage competitors. The U.S. can stop these tax games by junking corporate taxes.

Corporations are merely organizations to generate wealth by providing society with needed products and services. They pass the generated wealth to its owners, managers, employees, suppliers, consultants, or others who provide goods and services. As pass-through organizations, the taxes should be imposed on those who are paid for the labor, goods, and services provided or contracted for and those receiving the dividends and capital gains from the corporations.

By eliminating the federal corporate income tax, the United States immediately becomes the most tax-competitive nation in the world. If the claims of the corporations are correct—that the taxes are a real burden on their world competitiveness—eliminating corporate taxes should attract businesses from all over the world, so the U.S. can make products for the world and create massive numbers of new jobs in America. With all the new jobs, there will be new wealth, and, yes, more tax revenue for the government. The revenue will come from those paid by the corporations.

Second, make all gross income taxable with few deductions, and the fewer the better.

While this might seem like an impossible idea, it merely follows Amendment XVI of the US Constitution, which reads: “The Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived…”

Moreover, “gross income” as defined in the current Internal Revenue Code at title 26, section 61 means:

“. . .all income from whatever source derived including (but not limited to) the following items: (1) Compensation for services, including fees, commissions, fringe benefits, and similar items (2) Gross income derived from business (3) Gains derived from dealings in property (4) Interest (5) Rents (6) Royalties (7) Dividends (8) Alimony and separate maintenance payments (9) Annuities (10) Income from life insurance and endowment contracts (11) Pensions (12) Income from discharge of indebtedness (13) Distributive share of partnership gross income (14) Income in respect of a decedent (15) Income from an interest in an estate or trust

By taxing all gross income, every American would be subject to the same simple and transparent income tax code, at every established marginal tax rate. All special tax benefits would be eliminated. By taxing all sources of income, the tax rate could be substantially lower than the current code, since the base of taxed sources would be substantially larger. A 2006 report by the Tax Policy Center on the benefits of a broad-based tax without most deductions, found the lowest marginal tax rate dropping from 10% to 6.6% and the highest marginal rate dropping from 35.5%to 23%. Moreover, with all sources of income taxed, taxpayers will be unable to manipulate the tax code, something they have done since the first amendments to the federal income tax code were enacted by Congress in 1918.

A few examples of the revenues to be raised annually by eliminating tax deductions, thus allowing for lower tax rates:

• Home mortgage deduction, $60 billion dollars.
• Employer-paid health insurance, $300 billion.
• Carried-interest, $1.4 to $18 billion.
• Stepped-up basis allowance in the Estate Tax, $113 billion.
• Close CEO pay loopholes, $ 5 billion annually.
• Treat all fringe benefits as exactly what they are—compensation (income) to attract and retain employees.
• Eliminate the hundreds of obscure special interest provisions in the current tax code, thereby making billions of dollars in income subject to taxation.

Once the complexity is removed from the tax code, the tax structure can easily be converted to a simple, fair, and transparent system for taxing individuals and for funding the government. Moreover, if the federal government seeks to raise taxes, it will be directly visible to every taxpayer.

This seemingly absurd proposal is more than doable, It is, in fact, similar to the first income tax code in 1913. The entire 1913 Internal Revenue Service Form 1040 was four pages long, including instructions.

On the 1913 Form 1040, the taxpayer listed its income, which included income from salaries, wages, personal services, sales or dealings in property, rents, interest from notes and mortgages, partnership profits, coupon payments, trusts, and from any source derived. A certain amount of income was exempt from taxation, i.e.; $ 3,000 – $ 4,000 in 1913. The only deductions that could be subtracted from gross income were those necessary business expenses, interest on personal indebtedness, causality losses, debts deemed worthless in that year, and depreciation.

The 1913 tax, like today, was progressive—it had six rates. At $20,000 there was an additional 1% tax on the income. Marginal rates increased up to 6% on incomes over $500,000. It was a simple return to complete, straightforward in its application, and fair in that it eliminated “tax tricks” that are found throughout today’s tax code.

The 1913 tax code, with a few modifications, could literally be dropped into place today and taxpayers could complete it. Perhaps the first tax bracket would start at income exceeding $30,000, to provide an incentive to work. There would be several tax brackets that are similar to 1913, which had 6, and today there are 7.  The brackets would be determined based on the pre-pandemic revenues so as not to inflate the revenue needs of the government. A few other modifications would be needed, such as eliminating the deduction for the payment of personal interest, which would today be called the mortgage interest deduction.

To prevent tax fraud within this simple process, the penalties, like the penalties in the original 1913 tax law, would need to be stiff. Penalties in 1913 ranged from $20 to $1,000, which is the equivalent of $560 per violation to $27,938. Such high penalties place all individuals on notice that there are serious penalties for tax fraud. This is essential, as those who do not pay their fair share of taxes merely transfer the cost to honest citizens in the form of additional taxes.

Another benefit of this simple approach would be its ability to capture a greater amount of tax owed by closing the Tax Gap.  The IRS defines the tax gap as the difference between true taxes owed for a given tax year and the amount that is paid. The gap is caused by the under-reporting of income, non-filing, and tax evasion. While the exact amount is unknown, the IRS estimates it to range from $574 billion to $700 billion, annually. A complex tax code invites under-reporting, whereas failing to pay taxes in a simple system, could easily place one in a position of defending a fraud or tax evasion charge.

Just based on the new sources of income listed above, and closing a portion of the tax gap, generates around a trillion dollars annually while the marginal rates are lowered for all taxpayers. These revenues would be used for reducing the tax rates imposed on income to their lowest in modern times.

Our current tax code is anything but fair, neutral, and transparent. Every attempt at tax reform has been nothing more than tinkering around the margins of the tax laws to provide more benefits to those who already reap the benefits of society. With more than ten million words of unreadable laws and regulations related to every activity of life, it is time for a simpler, fairer, more equitable system. It has been done before. It can be done again.

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The Internal Revenue Service seized $446,000 from the bank accounts of brothers Jeffrey, Richard, and Mitch Hirsch in 2012, claiming a “structuring” violation against the owners of Bi-County Distributors Inc. for making multiple bank deposits of less than $10,000.

The government never charged them with a crime, nor gave them a hearing to enable them to contest the seizure, but after intense national media attention to the case, the government returned the funds.

The case was among many that highlighted an abuse by IRS agents known as legal source structuring that allowed the tax collection agency to use a law, the Bank Secrecy Act, intended to combat money laundering, to seize assets.

President Donald Trump signed a bipartisan bill Monday to force greater accountability on the IRS in the property seizures, as well as protect taxpayers from identity theft, boost whistleblower protections, and modernize the tax agency.

“We just finished signing, the important signing, of the Taxpayer First bill, the IRS Taxpayer First, which is a tremendous thing for our citizens having to deal with the IRS,” Trump told reporters after the signing. “It streamlines and so many other changes are made. That was just done and signed. It’s been made into law. So we are all set on that.”

The new law, the Taxpayer First Act, requires the IRS to show probable cause that the smaller transactions were made in order to evade financial reporting requirements.

Legal source structuring laws kick in when large financial transactions are broken up into smaller transactions, which sparks suspicion from the IRS. If dividing up transactions is done with the intent to evade bank reporting requirements, it’s illegal, and the IRS can seize assets.

A 2017 audit by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found no evidence of underlying crimes in 91% of the structuring cases examined in a sampling.

The inspector general’s report further noted that the IRS frequently ignored reasonable explanations business owners have for deposits.

The IRS used the power in 2,500 cases between 2005 and 2012, gobbling up $242 million in assets, according to the Institute for Justice, a public interest legal group. Of those, one-third involved only allegations of structuring, and not other alleged wrongdoing, the institute found.

The provision of the Taxpayer First Act largely codifies rules the IRS had already made in response to public pressure, but unlike laws, regulations can be overturned administratively.

The new law further requires a hearing within 30 days of an assets seizure.  It also establishes an independent office of appeals within the IRS for taxpayers.

“This is a long time coming,” said Jason Snead, senior policy analyst at the Institute for Constitutional Government at The Heritage Foundation. “There have been many noted abuses in cases not derived from illegal behavior. I hope this is the beginning of a longer process to reform the civil forfeiture laws.”

At a time when Congress has had a tough time agreeing to any major legislation, the Republican-controlled Senate and Democrat-controlled House voted overwhelmingly in favor of the legislation.

“This bipartisan, bicameral bill represents years of hard work and consensus building,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement after its Senate passage. “It’s a big first step toward strengthening taxpayer protections and turning the IRS into the customer service organization it ought to be.”

The new law authorized the IRS internal investigators to communicate with whistleblowers who are, during the processing of their claims, reporting bad behavior within the agency if doing so would be helpful to the investigation. The internal investigators, usually the inspector general, would also notify the whistleblowers on the status of the investigation, under the new law.

The law further extends anti-retaliation provisions to the IRS whistleblowers currently afforded to whistleblowers in other agencies.

It requires the IRS to submit to Congress a plan to make the agency more efficient by modernizing technology, and to enhance cybersecurity to protect taxpayer data.

The law further includes a provision to help prevent identity theft. It also expands to all taxpayers an existing program that previously only allowed victims of tax ID theft to obtain a personal identification number (PIN) that better secures their identity.

“Americans interact with the IRS more than any other federal agency,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, adding:

Passage of the Taxpayer First Act will modernize the agency, allowing it to better serve taxpayers. 

Our bill includes critical provisions to improve customer service, protect personal data, preserve tax-preparation services and shield low-income taxpayers from abusive private debt collectors.

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By Lee Friday

Rape and murder are violent acts. Ordinary citizens consider these to be far more serious offenses than acts of theft. Accordingly, as we allocate limited resources to solving all offenses, our expectation is that rape and murder will be given top priority.

However, the actions of politicians and bureaucrats appear to reflect a view that theft, or more precisely, theft from government, is considered a more heinous crime than the rape or murder of ordinary citizens. We see this in Canada where the government allocates more and more resources to the pursuit, prosecution, and conviction of tax evaders, while a majority of offenses which the public considers a higher priority go unsolved.

Government’s Performance Record

Statistics for various offenses in Canada (2008/09), extracted from a report compiled by the Fraser Institute, are shown in the following table1:

To facilitate our discussion, let’s define the solving of a crime as the capture and conviction of the perpetrator, regardless of sentence imposed. For example, on average, across the country, if there were 1,000 homicides, authoritarian law enforcement solves only 206 of these cases. Calculation: 1,000 x 66% (column 2) x 65% (column 3) x 48% (column 4) = 206. Then, 206 divided by 1,000 = 20.6%. Thus, 21% of homicides are solved and 79% are not solved.

Therefore, the performance record (2008-09) of authoritarian law enforcement in Canada is as follows:

79% of homicides are NOT solved

96% of attempted murders are NOT solved

90% of robberies are NOT solved

91% of sexual assaults are NOT solved

92% of other sexual offences are NOT solved

84% of major assaults are NOT solved

90% of common assaults are NOT solved

93% of uttering threats are NOT solved

92% of criminal harassment cases are NOT solved

97% of thefts are NOT solved

97% of break and enters are NOT solved

Note – these statistics reflect only those crimes which are known to the police.

This performance record justifies the public’s lack of confidence in the police and justice system, as evidenced by the dark blue segments of the lines in the following graph:

The abysmal performance of police and justice system bureaucracies, which gives rise to the public’s lack of confidence in them, explains why the majority of crimes committed against person and property are notreported to the police, thus remaining unknown to them. Statistics Canada conducts a General Social Surveyevery 5 years, in which it seeks to determine the extent to which people are victimized by various types of offences. The total number of crimes reported in the 2009 survey are a multiple of those known to police. For example, only 5% of sexual assaults and 26% of robberies were reported to police.2 Makes sense. Why expend time and effort reporting crimes to inefficient government bureaucracies which seldom produce justice?

Tax Evasion

In contrast, over the last four years, the government has increased the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) budget by $1.6 billion to facilitate the investigation, prosecution, and conviction of tax evaders, and to make tax evasion more difficult.3

CRA assistant commissioner Ted Gallivan said “it’s [tax evasion] a serious criminal offence and it comes with serious criminal consequences. … some actors … have to be locked up in jail to get them to discontinue their activities.” Indeed, “from April 1, 2013, to March 31, 2018, the courts convicted 307 taxpayers for tax evasion of $134 million in federal tax. These convictions resulted in sentences totaling approximately $37 million in court fines and 2,949 months (246 years) in jail.”

Of course, we don’t know how often people actually try to evade taxes, or what percentage of them are prosecuted by governments. But given that governments are increasing tax-prosecution budgets while so much real crime goes unpunished suggests governments have a serious problem with getting their priorities in order. But, as the drug war has long shown us, governments are often more interested in padding their budgets than in solving crimes.

Markets Versus Government

On the free market, when we shop for food, clothes, cars, haircuts, electronics etc., service is linked to payment. If we do not like the product or service which we expect to receive in return for our payment, we are not obligated to complete the transaction because all transactions are voluntary. We can shop elsewhere. Thus, businesses are incentivized to accommodate our preferences because that is the only way to persuade us to part with our money.

In contrast, within the realm of government, transactions are not voluntary because coercion replaces persuasion, which means service is severed from payment. The government arbitrarily decides the price to be charged for a particular service (in our case, crime solving) and coercively extracts this money (taxes) from citizens. The government then arbitrarily determines the level of service it will actually provide, and to whom it will be provided. As Bruce Benson wrote, “A person’s chances of police protection correspond closely to his position in the “geography of political power.” Much more attention is paid to the robbery of an important political figure than to the murder of an out-of-work, uneducated member of a racial minority.”4

Having already taken the money to fund massive police and judicial bureaucracies, the government has little incentive to solve violent crimes. Less money allocated to this task means more money is available for exorbitant bureaucratic salaries. But those evil tax evaders are different. The government has not yet succeeded in taking their money, so politicians extract more tax dollars to hire people to hunt down these hardened criminals.

Conclusion

The government considers tax-evaders to be thieves because they are not honouring their tax obligations – they are stealing from the government. Regarding taxation, we can argue over who is the actual thief, but that goes beyond the scope of this article. What is clear, beyond any doubt whatsoever, is that the government considers the pursuit of tax thieves to be a higher priority than providing justice for victims of rapists, murderers, and robbers. We know this is true because $1.6 billion allocated to the CRA to solve tax evasion crimes could instead have been allocated to municipalities for the purpose of solving violent crimes. It is appalling and contemptible that a majority of federal politicians shamelessly establish such priorities for crime solving.

The coercive nature of government creates perverse incentives. Professor Bruce L. Benson presents a compelling case that law making and law enforcement are best left to the free market, where service is linked to payment, thus creating the necessary incentives for achieving excellent performance and justice for victims.

• 1.Stephen Easton, Hilary Furness, & Paul Brantingham The Cost of Crime in Canada: 2014 Report (Fraser Institute, 2014) p 84. As per the authors of this report, the figure in column 7 represents “the days of the imposed sentence multiplied by the probability that he will actually face that sentence since even facing the judge is anything but a certainty … Column [7] is the product of percent cleared by charge, percent of charges becoming court cases, the percent guilty, the percent of guilty sentenced to incarceration, and number of days of the sentence.” Column 8 “reflects the duration of the sentence for the crime, the probability that he will be captured, charged, convicted, sentenced to incarceration, and the reality that he is eligible for parole after only a fraction of his sentence is served … Column [8] equals expected time to serve multiplied by the fraction of sentence before eligibility for parole.” (see pp 84 – 85)
• 2.Ibid., p 101
• 3.See Canada’s federal budget for 2016 , 2017 , 2018 , and 2019 .
• 4.Bruce L. Benson The Enterprise of Law (The Independent Institute, 2011) p 133 [additional source provided by Benson: Richard Neely, Why Courts Don’t Work (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982) p 131

The post Does the State Care More About Tax Evasion than Murder? appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Joshua Gillon

The Satanic Temple announced Wednesday that the IRS granted it tax-exempt status as a religious nonprofit, claiming it as a victory against theistic organizations’ “exclusive rights.”

The Satanic Temple claimed in a social media post that its new status would place it on equal footing with other religious organizations, giving it “the same access to public spaces” and enabling it “to apply for faith-based government grants.”

The temple’s claims seem redundant, however, in light of the fact that any 501c3 organization, religious or otherwise, is qualified to apply for government grants. There are also no government grants exclusive to faith-based institutions.

“We are pleased to announce that for the very first time in history, a satanic organization has been recognized by the United States federal government as being a church,” the temple’s statement read.

“This acknowledgement will help make sure The Satanic Temple has the same access to public spaces as other religious organizations, affirm our standing in court when battling religious discrimination, and enable us to apply for faith-based government grants,” it added.

The federal government states clearly, however, that when approving grants it does not discriminate against nonprofit community organizations based on their religious character or lack thereof.

“The federal government does not discriminate against non-governmental organizations on the basis that such organizations have a religious character. Faith-based organizations are eligible to compete for grant funds on the same basis as all other non-governmental organizations,” reads a statement from the Health Resources and Services Administration website.

“Decisions about grant applications and awards will be made based solely on the competence, capacity, and actions of the provider, not whether it is a secular or faith-based provider,” it said.

Lucien Greaves, co-founder of The Satanic Temple, decided to pursue tax-exempt status for the organization in response to President Donald Trump’s 2017 religious freedom executive order. Greaves claimed that achieving tax-exempt status was necessary to ensure that other nonprofit organizations have the same rights as religious organizations.

“As ‘the religious’ are increasingly gaining ground as a privileged class, we must ensure that this privilege is available to all, and that superstition doesn’t gain exclusive rights over non-theistic religions or non-belief,” Greaves wrote in a newsletter, according to Rolling Stone.

The Satanic Temple did not clarify which rights Greaves believed were in danger of becoming “exclusive” to theistic organizations. The temple’s new status also did not secure any new rights for non-religious nonprofit organizations.

Representatives of The Satanic Temple did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment by the time of publication.

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Tim Pearce on January 17, 2019

House Democrats are questioning the legality of a Department of the Interior (DOI) decision to call back thousands of furloughed employees to work on offshore drilling permits.

A trio of Democrats sent a letter to the acting Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt Wednesday, alleging that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) broke federal law by allowing some federal employees to begin working again.

“This is an outrageous step, and the justifications provided in the BOEM contingency plan … are farcical and make it clear that the administration cares only about the impacts on its favorite industry and not about workers, their families, and ordinary families,” the letter said.

Democratic Reps. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, Betty McCollum of Minnesota, and Alan Lowenthal of California joined Grijalva in signing the letter. Grijalva chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources, which oversees the DOI.

BOEM changed its shutdown plan Jan. 8 to bring back employees to work on seismic permits and offshore lease sales because leaving the agency understaffed threatened to “negatively impact the Treasury and negatively impact investment in the U.S. Offshore Gulf of Mexico,” BOEM said according to the letter.

The Democrats demanded BOEM reverse course. If not, Bernhardt would likely be called in front of the House Natural Resources Committee, to defend the legality of BOEM’s actions, which “appear to be in violation of the Antideficiency Act,” according to the letter.

Thousands of other federal workers were called back to work Tuesday as agencies expand their definitions of “essential” personnel.

“We are recalling inspectors and engineers to perform duties to ensure continuous operational safety of the entire national airspace,” a Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson told Politico. “We proactively conduct risk assessment, and we have determined that after three weeks it is appropriate to recall inspectors and engineers.”

Aviation, food, drug and medical inspectors were some of the 50,000 federal employees called off of furlough and back to their positions. If the government shutdown stretches to Jan. 28, about 46,000 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employees return to their jobs for tax-filing season.

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Michael Bastasch on December 14, 2018

The Treasury Department announced it would phase out electric vehicle subsidies for Tesla buyers at the beginning of 2019, and by 2020, those tax subsidies would completely disappear.

It’s an announcement the Treasury Department’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will be making more of in the coming years as automakers produce enough electric cars to trigger a phase-out of tax subsidies.

“Tesla, Inc. has submitted reports that indicate that its cumulative sales of qualified vehicles reached the 200,000-vehicle limit during the calendar quarter ending September 30, 2018,” reads an IRS notice published Friday.

“Accordingly, the credit for all new qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicles sold by Tesla, Inc. will begin to phase out January 1, 2019,” the IRS noted.

Tesla hit the 200,000-vehicle mark earlier in 2018, triggering tax subsidies to phase out. Tesla buyers are still eligible for a $7,500 tax credit through the end of 2018, but subsidies fall to $3,750 per vehicle for the first half of the year before declining to $1,875 in the second half.

By 2020, Tesla buyers will no longer receive federal tax credits, though they may still get state and local subsidies for electric car purchases. Congress may also extend electric car subsidies, which were put in place in 2008 when lawmakers worried about high oil prices.

Tesla and GM, the only other automaker to face a subsidy phase-out in 2019, are part of the EV Drive Coalition, which is pushing to extend subsidies for electric vehicles. The group claims subsidies are “essential to the continued development of the EV market.”

However, Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk previously suggested Tesla didn’t need government subsidies to thrive.

“If I cared about subsidies, I would have entered the oil and gas industry,” Musk said in 2015.

Conservative activists oppose extending electric car subsidies, arguing they primarily benefit high-income Americans at the expense of the working class and poor.

“They’re basically subsidizing rich people, but mostly rich Californians,” Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance (AEA) that opposes electric car tax credits, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in December.

Pyle called electric car tax credits a “reverse Robin Hood tax credit.” Republicans, including Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, agree electric vehicles subsidies should be ended.

Barrasso introduced legislation to end the tax credit and slap a fee on electric vehicles, which would go toward the Highway Trust Fund.

A bill from Democratic Vermont Rep. Peter Welch in the House would completely remove the cap for the next 10 years.

Tesla did not respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment.

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In a controversial Instagram post published earlier today the meteoric artist, Cardi B, expressed her displeasure with government fiscal policy.

Watch here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFE6adKcy2E

Citing the lack of visible return on investment, this hip hop artist asks what many of us are thinking every year come tax season, “Where is my money going?”. Specifically evoking anecdotes of the dirty streets and rat infested subways of New York City she wonders why exactly she should be paying 40% of her income when the things that matter to her aren’t being taken care of. Well Ms. B, the answer is nowhere good. Most of it goes to the 3 trillion dollar bipartisan black hole that is entitlement spending. Another half a trillion gets thrown overboard in immoral, unconstitutional, ineffective, ‘nation building’ wars. Truth is only a small fraction of government spending goes towards the things that people think it goes to such as schools, roads, and protecting property rights.

See for yourself:

I for one share the sentiment.

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By Juliegrace Brufke

Former Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown of Florida was found guilty Thursday of 18 of the 22 charges brought against her in a corruption case.

The charges include conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud, lying on financial disclosure forms, obstructing the IRS, taking money from a charity that claimed to be providing scholarships to underprivileged students and falsifying information on tax returns.

WATCH:

Prosecutors said Brown and two of her associates transferred more than $800,000 from her charity, One Door for Education, into personal bank accounts between 2012 and 2016. The charity reportedly only gave out $1,200 in scholarship funds.

Brown’s former chief of staff, Ronnie Simmons, and the charity’s president, Carla Wiley, both testified against their former boss.

The verdict was given after two days of deliberation and eight days of testimony from roughly 50 witnesses. Brown, who served in the lower chamber from Jan. 1993 – Jan. 2017, said she had made some mistakes, but maintained it was not intentional.

“Let me just admit right her and now that there was a lot of sloppy bookkeeping … It was a mistake on my part and I needed to get on top of my taxes,” Brown told the jury, according to ABC News.

Assistant U.S. Attorney A. Tysen Duva blasted the former congresswoman’s actions during his opening statement, according to ABC.

“Corruption. Greed. And a significant entitlement attitude,” Duva told the jury. “And that’s what this case is about. It’s about lying, cheating, and stealing. It’s about fraud and corruption of the member of the highest level of the American government.”

The date for Brown’s sentencing has not yet been set.

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By Juliegrace Brufke

California Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell slammed President Donald Trump by using three lines and 17 non-rhyming syllables to blast the president’s decision not to release his tax returns on National Haiku Day Monday.

Swalwell, a vocal critic of Trump and member of the House Intelligence Committee, called on the president to release the documents through Japanese poetry.

Democrats have recently stepped up their call for the president to release his tax returns, with critics protesting across the country over Easter weekend, just ahead of tax day.

Trump has repeatedly said he won’t release his tax returns until he is no longer under audit by the Internal Revenue Service.

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By Kody Fairfield

The federal government collected record amounts of both individual income taxes and payroll taxes through the first six months of fiscal 2017 (Oct. 1, 2016 through the end of March), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement, reports CNSNews.

The report explains that through March, the federal government collected approximately $695,391,000,000 in individual income taxes. That is about $7,387,280,000 more than the $688,003,720,000 in individual income taxes (in constant 2017 dollars) that the federal government collected in the first six months of fiscal 2016.

For Social Security, the federal government collected $547,491,000,000 and other payroll taxes during the first six months of fiscal 2017. That is about $2,731,820,000 more than the $544,491,000,000 in Social Security and other payroll taxes (in constant 2017 dollars) that the government collected in the first six months of fiscal 2016, explained the report.

And even though the treasury collected record amounts of income, it has managed to still run a deficit of $526,855,000,000 in the first six months of fiscal 2017, according to CNSNews.

CNSNews also mentioned that even though there were record revenues from individual income taxes and payroll taxes in the first six months of fiscal 2017, overall federal tax collections were slightly down.

In the first six months of fiscal 2016, the federal government collected $1,513,124,070,000 (in constant 2017 dollars) in total taxes. In the first six months of this fiscal year, total federal tax collections have dropped to $1,473,137,000,000—a decline of about $39,987,070,000 from total tax collections in the first six months of fiscal 2016.

The federal government ran its $526,855,000,000 deficit through the first six months of this fiscal year because while the Treasury was collecting $1,473,137,000,000 in total taxes, it was spending $1,999,991,000,000.

Because there were 153,000,000 people employed in the United States in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the $1,473,137,000,000 in taxes the federal government has collected so far this fiscal year equals about $9,628 for every person with a job.

The $526,855,000,000 deficit equals about $3,443 for every person with job, explained CNSNews.

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