Obama's trillion-dollar stimulus = cash for tax cheats

[American Cowboy]

Porkulus: Cash for Tax Cheats

When President Obama signed the trillion-dollar stimulus law in 2009, he proclaimed that he was “keeping the American dream alive in our time.” The stimulator-in-chief failed to mention that billions would be spent keeping American tax scammers afloat on our dime.

At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, federal auditors reported on the latest porkulus spending gone wild. According to a new General Accounting Office audit (summary and full report pdf here) conducted over the past year, nearly 4,000 stimulus recipients received $24 billion in Recovery Act funds — while owing more than $750 million in unpaid corporate, payroll and other taxes. Among the tax-cheating federal contractors and grant winners who raked in stimulus bucks, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found:

– Two social services groups with nearly $3 million in unpaid taxes each received more than $1 million in stimulus awards.

– One nonprofit organization owed more than $2 million from years of unpaid payroll taxes, while at the same time its CEO made numerous trips to a casino. The group was awarded more than $1 million in stimulus funds.

– One engineering services firm had a $6 million delinquent tax debt and was called by the IRS an “extreme case of noncompliance,” yet won a contract worth more than $100,000.

– A municipality with a history of late tax filings and five periods of unpaid payroll taxes worth $1 million received $100,000 in stimulus money.

– A health care company that owes more than $1 million in back taxes and has had federal IRS liens filed against it since the late 1990s received $100,000 in stimulus funds.

– One security firm owed $9 million and was repeatedly cited not only for being uncooperative with the IRS, but also had been nabbed with frequent labor violations. It also received a stimulus contract worth more than $100,000.

And this is just the tip of the Cash for Tax Cheats iceberg. The GAO acknowledged in its report that “the estimated amount of known unpaid federal taxes we identified is likely understated” because of rampant underreporting of income and because the analysis did “not include Recovery Act contract and grant recipients who are noncompliant with or not subject to Recovery Act reporting requirements.”

The official response of the Obama administration’s stimulus oversight board? First, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board patted itself on the back for its transparency. Second, the panel dodged responsibility by sheepishly pointing out that “federal law does not prohibit tax delinquents from getting government contracts or grants.” As if the RATs couldn’t have exercised their own common sense to stop such plundering in the name of job creation themselves?

Even if such a prohibition existed, you can’t count on the IRS to perform due diligence on behalf of the American taxpayer, either. Last week, the Treasury Department inspector general found that the tax police have failed to prevent fraud in the stimulus law’s energy tax credit program. Some $6 billion in stimulus energy credits for homeowners have been claimed — but the inspector general’s audit found that 30 percent of credit-claimers had no record of homeownership. The recipients included prisoners and minors. “I am troubled by the IRS’s continued failure to develop appropriate verification methods for distributing Recovery Act credits,” the Treasury Inspector watchdog said.

Moreover, when the IRS wasn’t falling down on its job policing outside fraud, its own workers were committing their own stimulus fraud — by cheating the system and claiming a first-time homebuyer tax credit included in the 2008 and 2009 economic stimulus packages. At least 128 IRS employees claimed the credit, according to a recent Treasury Department audit, yet weren’t first-time buyers or violated other basic eligibility criteria.

Oklahoma GOP Sen. Tom Coburn, who has doggedly tracked stimulus waste from Day One, said, “That such a huge amount of the stimulus money went to known tax cheats should be a wake-up call for Congress.” It should be about the 20th wake-up call by now. Obama’s notorious slush fund has redistributed wealth to prison inmates, flaky researchers, social justice boondoggles, infrastructure to nowhere, foreign companies, dead people and ghost congressional districts — not to mention $20 million in chump change to pay for campaign-style stimulus-hyping road signs across the country emblazoned with the shovel-ready logo.

And for what?

Unemployment remains near double-digits. Obama economic advisers Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein infamously vowed the stimulus would stay below 8 percent. Highway jobs have not materialized. Investor’s Business Daily notes that a new study by economists Timothy Conley of the University of Western Ontario and Bill Dupor of Ohio State “found that despite the influx of all that federal money, highway construction jobs actually plunged by nearly 70,000 between 2008 and 2010.” Indeed, the researchers found that the stimulus actually “destroyed or forestalled” a whopping one million private sector jobs by crowding them out with make-work public jobs and programs.

Recovery.gov? More like Wreckovery.gov.

by Michelle Malkin

Link

Obama will go down in history as the worst president ever. Our grandchildren will feel the effects of his presidency the most as they will be paying for it.

 

[Sallow]

What fun.

Another fact free "Another company (with no name)" did this diatribe from Ms. Malkin..who loved McCarthyism and Japanese detention. She also questioned whether John Kerry's injuries in battle were self-inflicted.

Fact is..Republicans have and are defunding the IRS so they DON'T go after tax cheats. Because even this, Grover Norquist calls tax increases.

Gosh..this tripe is so laughable.

 

[American Cowboy]

Stimulus recipients found to be tax cheats

3,700 owed $757M, GAO report reveals

One construction company that won multiple awards of money under President Obama’s 2009 stimulus program was delinquent on its federal tax bill to the tune of $700,000, even as a company executive was blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars at casinos.

Yet another company failed to pay taxes, entered into a payment plan with the Internal Revenue Service, and then repeatedly defaulted on that agreement - and still won stimulus contracts worth more than $1 million, according to a Government Accountability Office report released Tuesday.

All told, government investigators found that during the period they examined, one out of every six stimulus contract or grant dollars went to a known tax cheat, according to Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who, along with several colleagues, requested the GAO review.

The review found that at least 3,700 stimulus recipients owed a total of more than $757 million in taxes, but were awarded $24 billion in stimulus money.

“Average Americans are likely wondering why we gave such a huge amount of federal money to tax cheats when our national debt is more than $14 trillion,” Mr. Coburn said. “That $24 billion went to such people looks like we are rewarding people for potentially criminal behavior.”

GAO said the number of cheats and the total dollar amount of unpaid taxes is likely higher than their findings because IRS databases don’t record amounts owed by taxpayers who have not filed returns or who have not been assessed delinquent payments by the IRS.

Federal law does not bar tax cheats from getting contracts, nor does it allow the IRS to share taxpayer information. It does allow the government to dock payments to cheats in order to make up their missing taxes, but only up to 15 percent.

Daniel I. Gordon, the procurement administrator in the Office of Management and Budget, said the Obama administration is trying its best to limit awards to cheaters, but that Congress needs to give the government more authority to let the IRS share data with the agencies that dole out the money.

He also said the president’s 2012 budget calls for giving the IRS authority to levy up to 100 percent of federal payments made to vendors that owe delinquent taxes.

Complicating the process, the GAO said much of the money couldn’t be recouped by the levy program because the stimulus grants were first made to states, localities or prime contractors, which then awarded them to subcontractors.

GAO said that loophole must be closed.

The government investigators took a closer look at 15 stimulus recipients whose histories raised red flags. The 15 were responsible for $40 million in unpaid taxes, and had all engaged in potentially criminal activities, including withholding payroll taxes from employees but never sending the money to the IRS.

All 15 have been referred to the IRS for follow-up.

The tax-cheat problem is not unique to the stimulus program, but it has brought the matter into focus again.

The Democrat-controlled Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009 in an effort to boost the struggling economy, and Mr. Obama promised the money would be responsible for funding 3.5 million jobs.

Since then, though, the stimulus price tag has grown to $821 billion while producing mixed results on the job front.

The unemployment rate topped 10 percent, despite the administration’s projections that it would never go above 8 percent. The Congressional Budget Office says the spending is responsible for supporting 3.5 million jobs at best, but it’s also just as likely that it supported 1.3 million jobs - well short of the Obama administration’s projections.

Seeking to renew attacks regarding the program, House Republicans’ campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee, used the GAO report’s findings Tuesday to attack Democrats who voted for the stimulus.

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times

 

[American Cowboy]

What fun.

Another fact free "Another company (with no name)" did this diatribe from Ms. Malkin..who loved McCarthyism and Japanese detention. She also questioned whether John Kerry's injuries in battle were self-inflicted.

Fact is..Republicans have and are defunding the IRS so they DON'T go after tax cheats. Because even this, Grover Norquist calls tax increases.

Gosh..this tripe is so laughable.

So hold both partiest accountable. Don't just blow it off like a moron.

Here is another

New York Times: Link

 

[Sallow]

What fun.

Another fact free "Another company (with no name)" did this diatribe from Ms. Malkin..who loved McCarthyism and Japanese detention. She also questioned whether John Kerry's injuries in battle were self-inflicted.

Fact is..Republicans have and are defunding the IRS so they DON'T go after tax cheats. Because even this, Grover Norquist calls tax increases.

Gosh..this tripe is so laughable.

So hold both partiest accountable. Don't just blow it off like a moron.

Here is another

New York Times: Link

I generally do.

I've had threads about major corporations getting sweetheart deals they don't deserve.

So are you in favor of funding the IRS properly..so they can chase down this money?

 

[American Cowboy]

What fun.

Another fact free "Another company (with no name)" did this diatribe from Ms. Malkin..who loved McCarthyism and Japanese detention. She also questioned whether John Kerry's injuries in battle were self-inflicted.

Fact is..Republicans have and are defunding the IRS so they DON'T go after tax cheats. Because even this, Grover Norquist calls tax increases.

Gosh..this tripe is so laughable.

So hold both partiest accountable. Don't just blow it off like a moron.

Here is another

New York Times: Link

I generally do.

I've had threads about major corporations getting sweetheart deals they don't deserve.

So are you in favor of funding the IRS properly..so they can chase down this money?

F the IRS. I want to defund them. You want an audit, you need an private independent firm. The government can't do anything right.

 

[Jessica Blume]

Taxes are theft. Therefore, the only real tax cheats work for the IRS. Those in the IRS work for the federal reserve. The fed is a tool for corrupt international bankers bent on profit above all social and environmental concern. Thus, end the fed.

 

[lehr]

Porkulus: Cash for Tax Cheats

When President Obama signed the trillion-dollar stimulus law in 2009, he proclaimed that he was “keeping the American dream alive in our time.” The stimulator-in-chief failed to mention that billions would be spent keeping American tax scammers afloat on our dime.

At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, federal auditors reported on the latest porkulus spending gone wild. According to a new General Accounting Office audit (summary and full report pdf here) conducted over the past year, nearly 4,000 stimulus recipients received $24 billion in Recovery Act funds — while owing more than $750 million in unpaid corporate, payroll and other taxes. Among the tax-cheating federal contractors and grant winners who raked in stimulus bucks, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found:

– Two social services groups with nearly $3 million in unpaid taxes each received more than $1 million in stimulus awards.

– One nonprofit organization owed more than $2 million from years of unpaid payroll taxes, while at the same time its CEO made numerous trips to a casino. The group was awarded more than $1 million in stimulus funds.

– One engineering services firm had a $6 million delinquent tax debt and was called by the IRS an “extreme case of noncompliance,” yet won a contract worth more than $100,000.

– A municipality with a history of late tax filings and five periods of unpaid payroll taxes worth $1 million received $100,000 in stimulus money.

– A health care company that owes more than $1 million in back taxes and has had federal IRS liens filed against it since the late 1990s received $100,000 in stimulus funds.

– One security firm owed $9 million and was repeatedly cited not only for being uncooperative with the IRS, but also had been nabbed with frequent labor violations. It also received a stimulus contract worth more than $100,000.

And this is just the tip of the Cash for Tax Cheats iceberg. The GAO acknowledged in its report that “the estimated amount of known unpaid federal taxes we identified is likely understated” because of rampant underreporting of income and because the analysis did “not include Recovery Act contract and grant recipients who are noncompliant with or not subject to Recovery Act reporting requirements.”

The official response of the Obama administration’s stimulus oversight board? First, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board patted itself on the back for its transparency. Second, the panel dodged responsibility by sheepishly pointing out that “federal law does not prohibit tax delinquents from getting government contracts or grants.” As if the RATs couldn’t have exercised their own common sense to stop such plundering in the name of job creation themselves?

Even if such a prohibition existed, you can’t count on the IRS to perform due diligence on behalf of the American taxpayer, either. Last week, the Treasury Department inspector general found that the tax police have failed to prevent fraud in the stimulus law’s energy tax credit program. Some $6 billion in stimulus energy credits for homeowners have been claimed — but the inspector general’s audit found that 30 percent of credit-claimers had no record of homeownership. The recipients included prisoners and minors. “I am troubled by the IRS’s continued failure to develop appropriate verification methods for distributing Recovery Act credits,” the Treasury Inspector watchdog said.

Moreover, when the IRS wasn’t falling down on its job policing outside fraud, its own workers were committing their own stimulus fraud — by cheating the system and claiming a first-time homebuyer tax credit included in the 2008 and 2009 economic stimulus packages. At least 128 IRS employees claimed the credit, according to a recent Treasury Department audit, yet weren’t first-time buyers or violated other basic eligibility criteria.

Oklahoma GOP Sen. Tom Coburn, who has doggedly tracked stimulus waste from Day One, said, “That such a huge amount of the stimulus money went to known tax cheats should be a wake-up call for Congress.” It should be about the 20th wake-up call by now. Obama’s notorious slush fund has redistributed wealth to prison inmates, flaky researchers, social justice boondoggles, infrastructure to nowhere, foreign companies, dead people and ghost congressional districts — not to mention $20 million in chump change to pay for campaign-style stimulus-hyping road signs across the country emblazoned with the shovel-ready logo.

And for what?

Unemployment remains near double-digits. Obama economic advisers Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein infamously vowed the stimulus would stay below 8 percent. Highway jobs have not materialized. Investor’s Business Daily notes that a new study by economists Timothy Conley of the University of Western Ontario and Bill Dupor of Ohio State “found that despite the influx of all that federal money, highway construction jobs actually plunged by nearly 70,000 between 2008 and 2010.” Indeed, the researchers found that the stimulus actually “destroyed or forestalled” a whopping one million private sector jobs by crowding them out with make-work public jobs and programs.

Recovery.gov? More like Wreckovery.gov.

by Michelle Malkin

Link

Obama will go down in history as the worst president ever. Our grandchildren will feel the effects of his presidency the most as they will be paying for it.

he has 2 trillion dollars for communist groups like ACORN & NPR & PLANNED PARENTHOOD & UNIONS - we will never get rid of these reds now !

 

[American Cowboy]

The Congressional Budget Office said in a new report that President Obama’s economic stimulus law will raise the federal deficit $830 billion over ten years, $43 billion more than the initially estimated cost of $787 billion.

Nice job President Dikhead!!!