Wealth envy has no bounds.
The Internal Revenue Service has launched a new global program to target what it calls “high wealth individuals,” IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said Monday.
“Through our new global high wealth operating unit we are taking a unified look at the entire web of business and economic entities controlled by high wealth individuals so we can better assess the risk such arrangements pose to tax compliance,” Shulman said at the National Press Club on Monday.
Shulman said the IRS is using “our robust and evolving enforcement program that ensures that everyone pays what they owe.”
The IRS initiated its Global High Wealth Industry group in the fall. Schulman told an October 26 meeting of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants that it would be part of “the globalization of tax administration,” which he called a “game changing trend” in tax enforcement.
“This brings me to another important development–a game-changing trend–the globalization of tax administration,” said Shulman.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/63761
More:
Obama signed yet another stimulus act ($17.5 billion) using the innocuous-sounding title of the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (cynically abbreviated to H.I.R.E.). This bill was touted as another step in helping job creation. In reality, it does the opposite.
Hidden within the bowels (page 27) of this so-called jobs legislation is an unreported (in the once-mainstream media) provision known as Foreign Account Tax Compliance. Apparently, the congressional leadership did not want attention focused on this as a standalone bill, so it was hidden within a much more popular-sounding jobs bill. The justification for passing this provision was ostensibly to crack down on so-called tax evaders.
In summary, this bill requires that foreign banks and financial institutions disclose the full details of American account-holders to the IRS — and to withhold 30% of all outgoing capital flows into those accounts if the IRS (not the courts) deems the account-holder “recalcitrant.” These requirements would also apply to non-American citizens living in the United States or to foreigners having investments and paying taxes within the country.If these stipulations are deemed illegal by a given foreign nation’s domestic laws, then the financial institution and the account-holder are required to close the account.
The end result of this action, if allowed to stand, will be to force banks and other foreign financial institutions to stop doing business within the United States, and further, make the country much less attractive to foreign investors, who will now come under the heavy hand of the IRS.
Per the Swiss Bankers Association, “These measures could have a boomerang effect and will make the US less attractive for foreign investors.”
And per the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce, “A lot of banks simply will not be able to do business in the US and that would cause considerable damage to the US economy.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/the_new_front_in_the_war_on_we.html
The assclowns in the Dem party are absolutely hellbent on destroying the economy and the wealth that drives it.
While tax cheats like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Charles Rangel get a pass, businesses get screwed. The problem is, many businesses already outsource and leave the country due to oppressive taxation. There’s no incentive for them to stay. If they stick around and get gouged, they’ll end up laying off more people and going under. They go eslewhere to escape this kind of shit, and now the assholes at the IRS want to chase them down and choke off their business on foreign soil.
This is just one more reson the IRS should be abolished and a Fair Tax system put in place.