The latest revelation of how the Obama administration is wasting your tax dollars comes from the IRS, which made ludicrous and insulting “training films” spoofing Star Trek and Gilligan’s Island television shows. At a cost to taxpayers of about $60,000.
Then during the fallout from the revelation, we found out that the IRS has a studio that costs taxpayers about $4 million a year.
It’s hard to watch the Star Trek video and not come away with the impression that these civil servants have a real disdain for the taxpayers who pay their salaries. The starship is headed for planet NoTax, where tax evasion and fraud are rampant—and the training film makes no mention that the vast majority of Americans do their best to voluntarily comply with thousands of confusing pages in the tax code.
Unfortunately, ObamaCare is going to give the IRS even more power over our lives. It’s the IRS that will monitor us to ensure we have health insurance and penalize (or is it a tax?) us if we don’t. I can’t wait to see that video, perhaps set in the emergency room, like the long-running program ER.
In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee last fall, a deputy IRS commissioner claimed: “We will not use levies, liens or criminal prosecutions if taxpayers have unpaid amounts related to the individual-coverage provision. There will not be revenue agents involved in this. These will not be audits,” according to a Fox News account.
But he also explained that the IRS could dock the tax returns of those who did not have qualified coverage.
Call it the kinder, gentler IRS.
Actually, it’s unclear how much power the IRS has over individuals to compel them to get coverage. But it’s a pretty sure bet that once ObamaCare is set in place, the IRS will want more power to enforce the health insurance mandate.
Early estimates were that the IRS might need 16,000 agents to monitor all of the tax forms. While that seemed like a widely inflated number, it would not be surprising if it took a few thousand agents to monitor the coverage, notify the public of non-compliance, and then impose the penalties.
Because of concerns raised by Republicans, IRS officials have tried to tap down fears that they would abuse their power. That would be the same people who just abused taxpayers by making these outlandish videos.
March 26, 2013