ALEC Running Tax Scam for Big Companies

[Flaylo]

Bob Edgar: ALEC Running Tax Scam for Big Companies

Today, mega-companies like Walmart, Koch Industries, Pfizer, and State Farm Insurance are openly if quietly engaged in just such an effort. They call it the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, dress it up with rhetoric about their devotion to free speech and free markets, and whine like spoiled children when someone dares to tell the truth about what it's up to.

For about a year now, Common Cause and other watchdog groups have been taking a hard look at ALEC. The more we've learned, the more unsettled we've become. And in recent days, I'm pleased to say, the press and public have been taking notice.

Today, Common Cause is announcing a whistleblower complaint against ALEC filed with the Internal Revenue Service. We are submitting several thousand pages of ALEC's internal records that we believe demonstrate beyond debate that ALEC for years has evaded federal taxes by masquerading as a charity and that it has lied to the IRS and the American public about its activities.

We're asking the IRS to end this charade, cancel ALEC's tax exemption, collect years of unpaid taxes and "impose necessary penalties."

The complaint includes ALEC memos, emails, "issue alerts," "talking points" and draft press releases, along with legislation drafted by ALEC-member corporations and then passed through ALEC task forces, committees in which elected state legislators and corporate executives vote as equals. The lawmakers go home to introduce that legislation without disclosing its ALEC lineage and accept ALEC's backroom coaching to guide it to passage.

I'm not surprised

 

[CrusaderFrank]

If we wanted HuffPo's opinion, we'd be there and not here.

I thought you were leaving?

 

[uscitizen]

If we wanted HuffPo's opinion, we'd be there and not here.

I thought you were leaving?

Shoot the messenger and the source but ignore if the message is true or not?

 

[whitehall]

A little hypocrisy of note; the author, is CEO of a quasi political organization called "Common Cause" which is tax exempt. Edgar is also president of some Methodist religious affiliated organization which is also tax exempt. The operative sentence in Edgar's op/ed goes "tailored to fattening their profits at the expense of the common good". Years ago that would be seen as pure Marxism but the left has drifted so far off the charts that they swallow the swill without thinking. How do private sector companies profit "at the expense of the common good"? Private sector companies produce goods and services that increase the common good. If you taxed them to death the common good would be decreased. The fat and comfortable radical left is so fueled by emotion and hatred that they don't even realize how hypocritical their views are.

 

[uscitizen]

Some of Christie's biggest bills match model legislation from D.C. group called ALEC
Published: Sunday, April 01, 2012, 6:00 AM Updated: Tuesday, April 03, 2012, 5:25 PM
By Salvador Rizzo/Statehouse Bureau The Star-Ledger

Star-Ledger fileGov. Chris Christie's administration denies using ALEC model bills, but some of Christie's biggest legislative proposals this year show numerous similarities to the conservative group's blueprints.
TRENTON — Let’s say you’re a state lawmaker, passionate about charter schools, and you want to turn this passion into laws that create social change. What you need are bills. And you want them fast — ready-made, just add water, written in language that can withstand partisan debate and legal scrutiny.

There is a place that has just what you want.

It’s called the American Legislative Exchange Council, a little-known conservative group headquartered in Washington, D.C., and funded by some of the biggest corporations in the United States — most with a business interest in state legislation.

ALEC has quietly made its mark on the political landscape by providing state governments with mock-up bills that academic and political experts say are, for the most part, tailored to fit a conservative agenda. In recent years, states — particularly those with new Republican governors and legislatures — have been flooded with ALEC’s model bills. Nearly 1,000 of them are introduced every year, and roughly one-fifth of those become law, according to ALEC’s own count. ALEC’s bills are especially attractive because they are written so they can virtually be copied and pasted onto legislative proposals across the land.

Some of Christie's biggest bills match model legislation from D.C. group called ALEC | NJ.com

 

[CrusaderFrank]

If we wanted HuffPo's opinion, we'd be there and not here.

I thought you were leaving?

Shoot the messenger and the source but ignore if the message is true or not?

The sources is the HuffPo and if I cared about what they'd thought and said, I'd go there directly

Arianna's PoolBoy Flaylo is either paid to link HuffPo articles here or he's just a complete fucking tool or possibly both.