Another case of Government "Fine for me but not for thee" - IRS edition - Granite Grok

Another case of Government “Fine for me but not for thee” – IRS edition

I really can’t add much more than the title – from Washington Free Beacon (emphasis mine):

The IRS spent over 4 million taxpayer dollars on a conference in 2010, CNN reported Tuesday evening. The actual amount wasted is unknown because the IRS was not required to keep its receipts, something that they require taxpayers to do.

CNN correspondent Dana Bash discussed the excesses of the agency in a report on 360, including gifts, video spoofs and upscale hotel rooms for agency higher-ups, but the cost of those and the conference itself was unclear because the IRS had engaged in poor record-keeping:

ANDERSON COOPER: I’ve got to go back to something you said. The IRS facing this audit actually said they couldn’t find some of their own receipts. Is that for real?

DANA BASH: That is for real, Anderson. It really is hard to believe, but the IG report explicitly says, ‘IRS management could not provide any documentation detailing how this money was spent.’ At the time, three years ago, this is also hard to believe, keeping track of and reporting costs of conferences wasn’t required at the IRS. Shoddy record-keeping wasn’t limited to just these videos. The IG couldn’t even verify the overall cost of the conference.

In the spotlightAs a limited Government guy, I do believe that revenue capture is a legitimate function of government (by some means but ONLY that amount needed to fund that limited government – both of which we do not have today).  So, in one form or another, we do need an IRS type function.  Just, given what we have found out, not this IRS and not the tax code we have either.

I do wonder that if we had all functions of Government have to follow the same rules that they lay down for us to follow (like simply keeping receipts in this case), would that automatically start to make them a bit more accountable?  After all, we have to be accountable to them come April 15th?

Besides the IRS targeting, this is yet another reason WHY the Progressive “Larger Government is a Bigger Government” is just so much hooey.  Too many dark corners for malfeasance.

 

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