Impeach Congress

By the People, For the People, We the People!

Posts Tagged government

When Government Turns Predator

Apr 5

Posted by ImpeachCongress in Abuse of Power, Legal Actions, Opinion | No Comments

The following article covers an area of gross government tyranny. Offshore banking. The overreach of the government and particularly their nazi force, the IRS, has become so egregious that simply opening a bank account overseas is viewed as a crime. Monty points out precisely that this bankrupt and broken government will stop at nothing to steal the wealth of its productive citizens. It is disgraceful. –impeachcongress

By: Monty Pelerin

Honest US citizens are being turned into prey by the IRS, the victims of a hunt for tax evaders. It is the natural, if lamentable, product of the urge to power our Founders warned us against.

More than two centuries ago, George Washington stated:

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

Over the years, General Washington’s prescience has been demonstrated as government usurped and abused power. The myth that government serves the people should be shattered by now. Increasingly, government behaves as the master, not as the intended servant.

Oppression abounds, but nowhere is the raw abuse of power and coercion more possible and evident than in the Internal Revenue Service. They are the most dangerous member of the government gang. Now they have another tool to bully and expropriate wealth from innocents — US citizens living abroad.

Early in his presidency, Barack Obama pledged to add 800 new IRS agents to punish tax evaders with overseas accounts. In an effort, presumably designed to curtail and punish tax evasion on the part of wealthy Americans, legislation aimed at criminals now threatens the income and savings of the law-abiding.

Background

The Bank Secrecy Act became law in 1970 and implemented the Foreign Bank Accounts Report (FBAR) to monitor money laundering. The FBAR law required that US persons owning or having signing authority over foreign bank accounts report this information to the US Treasury Department. It was not much enforced for the obvious reason that a criminal does not willingly divulge incriminating information. During the first three decades of FBAR, there was widespread ignorance and disregard for the law.

In 2003, the Treasury Department handed over enforcement to the IRS. In 2004 non-willful non-compliance increased to a $10,000 fine per account per annum. Willful non-compliance allows criminal charges, a prison sentence, and fines of $100,000 or 50% of bank account’s contents, whichever is more (see Shepherd, p. 10).

The IRS has implemented two Voluntary Disclosure Programs I (2009) and II (2011), in which they waive criminal charges provided that all back taxes and penalties have been paid, along with an FBAR penalty of 20% (in 2009) or 25% (in 2011) of the account’s highest balance over the last six years. The penalty is lower (12.5%) for balances under $75,000. Persons who were unknowingly US citizens face a 5% penalty (see FAQ 52).

In 2010, Congress passed FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) which forces foreign banks to report on American clients, even if doing so would violate the banking and privacy laws of their country. Implementation of FACTA will be coerced by withholding 30% of US income from banks not in compliance.

The arrogance and brutality of the legislation is apparent. The penalties are severe and disproportionate. Economic blackmail of foreign banks is disgraceful. All of these actions will have repercussions, probably not intended.

US Citizens Abroad

US citizens living abroad must open a foreign bank account because commerce is done in the local currency. All who do are potentially in violation of the FBAR law. Most were unaware of the FBAR requirements; but now that the IRS has rattled its FBAR saber, taxpayers abroad are in a quandary.

Wealthier citizens spend thousands of dollars on accountants and tax lawyers to try to put themselves into compliance with the least financial damage. The average citizen not in compliance has limited options. His choices include:

  1. Do Nothing The IRS doesn’t know about you, so continuing to keep a low profile and ignore the law might be the best route. This option may become impossible once FACTA comes into force.
  2. File FBAR Forms IRS FAQ 17 of the 2011 Voluntary Disclosure Program states that filers who have complied with all taxes and filing requirements except FBAR should not enter the program but simply file the delinquent forms by August 31, 2011 with a letter of explanation. They promise that no penalties will apply to such persons. But given the severe threats of punishment issued to anyone failing to comply, many wonder whether the IRS will accept the excuse of ignorance of the FBAR requirement.
  3. Enter 2011 Voluntary Disclosure Program: Some US citizens who entered the 2009 Voluntary Disclosure Program and were otherwise in compliance with US tax laws, found that the IRS intended to apply to them the full 20% penalty (see, e.g., here and here).
  4. Renounce Citizenship Many US citizens living overseas have lives fully integrated into their new country. They comply with the local tax laws and often possess dual citizenship. Compliance with US tax laws and FBAR are a nuisance and liability that they may be able to live without.

Renunciation of citizenship is not riskless. Such a decision will set citizens free from future liability, but may subject them to IRS penalties for prior non-compliance. In addition, for covered expatriates, those having two million in assets or $145,000 in average annual tax liability over the last five years, an exit tax is also required.

To appreciate the uncertainty and duress faced by US citizens living abroad, a couple of hypothetical situations are useful. International tax lawyer Phil Hodgen partly inspired the following hypothetical cases:

Hypothetical Case 1: Jim lives in a foreign country and has dutifully filed a US income tax return each year, but was unaware of FBAR filing retirements. Jim operates eight accounts: four retirement accounts (which he reported on his annual tax returns), two trading accounts, a checking account and a high interest savings account. The highest balance in these accounts is $1,000,000 over the last six years. His current balance is $800,000 after the market dip.

Jim doesn’t know what to do. After great worry, he enters the Voluntary Disclosure Program. The IRS assesses Jim a $250,000 FBAR penalty. In order to pay the penalty, Jim must withdraw funds from his retirement accounts forcing an additional tax liability of $100,000 on the income. Jim is no longer able to retire because his $800,000 has been reduced to $450,000, solely as a result of IRS capriciousness.

Hypothetical case 2: Nancy is a teacher and mother of three, married to a citizen of the foreign country where she has lived for fifteen years. She dutifully filed her taxes in the US, but never knew about FBAR. A friend entered the Voluntary Disclosure Program and was assessed $14,000. She contemplates the renunciation of American citizenship, because her foreign husband owns a successful business and Nancy is a signer on business accounts. She fears exposing her husband’s business to the IRS and also fears that upon her death, the IRS will seek its pound of flesh from her estate. She renounces citizenship, though it breaks her heart.

Abuse Of the Law

FBAR was initially a harmless and little known embarrassment for the United States. It began as an ineffective attempt to stop money laundering. Like so many other laws (RICO, Homeland Security, etc.), it began with what some believed noble purposes, only to morph into a tyranny imposed upon law-abiding citizens. It is now a tool capable of arbitrary and oppressive expropriation the wealth of millions of US citizens living abroad.

An insolvent government is a dangerous government. It is akin to a wounded and cornered animal. When conditions become really difficult, it is likely to do anything to survive. Arbitrariness in the interpretation of any law is dangerous to freedom, but especially so when government’s primary concern is survival rather than justice.

There are many reasons to be critical of FBAR. The following two will illustrate:

NIA Responds to Harvard Economics Professor About Inflation

Mar 29

Posted by ImpeachCongress in Economics, Economy, Inflation, Opinion | No Comments

By: national inflation association

Harvard economics professor Gregory Mankiw wrote an article that was published in the NY Times yesterday entitled, “It’s 2026, and the Debt Is Due”. In this article, Mankiw gave a hypothetical Presidential address the President of the U.S. might make in the year 2026 after a failed bond auction. Mankiw’s hypothetical Presidential address takes place in a scenario where in the year 2026, the U.S. Treasury “tried to auction its most recent issue of government bonds” but “almost no one was buying.” According to Mankiw’s hypothetical speech, during this 2026 crisis the President will admit, “The private market will lend us no more.”

Unfortunately, Professor Mankiw fails to understand that the U.S. has zero chance of surviving until the year 2026. What Mankiw predicts will happen 15 years from now is already happening today right under his nose, but somehow he fails to realize it.

The public today has already stopped buying U.S. treasuries. The Pimco Total Return Fund, which was the largest private holder of U.S. government bonds, has just reduced their holdings down to zero. The private sector was buying 30% of U.S. treasuries, but today is no longer buying at all. The Federal Reserve is currently buying 70% of U.S. treasuries. If it wasn’t for the Federal Reserve buying U.S. treasuries, we would already be experiencing failed bond auctions today.

According to Mankiw, the President will say in 2026, “Today, most of the large baby-boom generation is retired. They are no longer working and paying taxes, but they are eligible for the many government benefits we offer the elderly.” The fact is, the last baby-boomer turned 46 years old in 2010 and 46 is the age in which the average American reaches peak consumer spending. Therefore, even though most baby-boomers might not be retired, baby-boomer spending is now in free-fall while baby-boomers are simultaneously signing up for entitlement programs at record pace. This will begin to affect our economy today, not 15 years from now.

Mankiw’s hypothetical speech has the President admitting in 2026 that we “have to cut Social Security immediately, especially for higher-income beneficiaries. Social Security will still keep the elderly out of poverty, but just barely” and we “have to limit Medicare and Medicaid. These programs will still provide basic health care, but they will no longer cover many expensive treatments. Individuals will have to pay for these treatments on their own or, sadly, do without.” The truth is, if the U.S. government cut 100% of all spending except for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, we would still have a budget deficit from these entitlement programs and interest payments on our debt alone. If the U.S. wants to prevent hyperinflation and survive until 2026, we need to make major cuts to these programs today. By 2026, it will be over a decade too late and these programs will no longer exist at all.

Mankiw’s hypothetical 2026 Presidential address goes on to say that “over the last several years” the U.S. has experienced a “vicious circle of rising budget deficits” and “as the ratio of our debt to gross domestic product reached ever-higher levels, investors started getting nervous”. Does Mankiw realize that the U.S. just reported a budget deficit for the month of February 2011 of $222.5 billion, more than the entire fiscal year of 2007? In our opinion, our budget deficits can’t rise much more viciously than what they already are today, without the U.S. experiencing an outbreak of hyperinflation. We need to begin sharply reducing our deficits immediately or else hyperinflation this decade is inevitable.

Our real debt to GDP ratio in the U.S. today is already north of 500% when you include unfunded liabilities for entitlement programs, as well as other commitments like the backing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It will simply be impossible for this figure to rise much higher without the U.S. experiencing hyperinflation. NIA believes that unless the U.S. government completely eliminated Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, there is no way the U.S. government will be able to stay afloat for another 15 years with such an unprecedented level of debt.

In 2026, Mankiw believes the President will admit that, “Our efforts to control health care costs have failed.” He suggests the President will proclaim that, “We must now acknowledge that rising costs are driven largely by technological advances in saving lives. These advances are welcome, but they are expensive nonetheless.” Does Professor Mankiw own a laptop computer, plasma TV, or mobile phone? These technologies are improving by leaps and bounds yet prices are falling. Technological advances are not driving health care costs higher! It is the government’s involvement in the health care sector and their failure to allow the free market to operate that is driving health care costs through the roof.

Professor Mankiw believes the President will continue by saying, “We have to cut health insurance subsidies to middle-income families.” NIA believes it is the very same subsidies Mankiw is referring to that are driving health care costs sky high. It is just like in the college education industry. If the government didn’t provide subsidies for students to learn voodoo Keynesian economic theories from professors like Mankiw, college tuitions would be a lot more affordable.

To solve this supposed 2026 crisis, Mankiw believes the President will announce, “We will raise taxes on all but the poorest Americans. We will do this primarily by broadening the tax base, eliminating deductions for mortgage interest and state and local taxes. Employer-provided health insurance will hereafter be taxable compensation.” Although NIA believes employer-provided health insurance should be taxable compensation because it would end the employer based health insurance system and make health insurance cheaper for all Americans, we believe it will be impossible for the government to raise any additional revenues from tax increases. We are at a point where any additional taxes will drive economic activity overseas and result in less tax receipts. When hyperinflation soon arrives, taxes will become irrelevant. The government will fund over 99% of its spending by printing money and less than 1% from taxation.

Mankiw also believes the President in 2026 will, “increase the gasoline tax by $2 a gallon. This will not only increase revenue, but will also address various social ills, from global climate change to local traffic congestion.” Come 2026, gasoline will probably cost $20,000 per gallon, if we are lucky. An additional $2 gasoline tax will be absolutely pointless and meaningless.

Mankiw suggests that the President in 2026 will, “secure from the I.M.F. a temporary line of credit to help us through this crisis.” The I.M.F. recently sold a large percentage of its gold reserves and by 2026 will likely be broke. Even if the I.M.F. was still around 15 years from now and did provide the U.S. with a line of credit that helps it survive the crisis, the largest line of credit the I.M.F. could possibly financially provide would only support a U.S. government that is less than 1/10 of its size today. Therefore, NIA believes the U.S. government should begin dramatically reducing its size immediately, before it is in need of a line of credit from the I.M.F.

It would be nice to think that the U.S. will be able to borrow and print money for another 15 years to fund endless budget deficits and that 2026 is some magical year when all of our debts will come due. The economy does not work this way and it is disgraceful that our nation’s most prestigious ivy league schools are teaching such dangerous economic principles. Considering that a large percentage of our highest ranking government officials graduated from Harvard, it really explains a lot when you look at who is teaching economics at Harvard. Mankiw is the same professor who in April of 2009 called for the Federal Reserve to implement negative interest rates. Mankiw called for savers to be punished and for all Americans with $100,000 in the bank to have only $98,000 one year later.

It is the destructive Keynesian theories of economists like Mankiw that have gotten the U.S. economy into the dire situation it is in today. Mankiw and other professors like him are brainwashing American students into believing that forcing people to spend is the key to a healthy economy and the way to solve all economic problems is to create a lot of inflation. All across America, students are graduating colleges with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, no jobs, and no idea of how the economy actually works. They will spend the rest of their lives paying off their debts and trying to get the false economic information they were taught out of their heads. The college education system in America is the single largest fraud that exists today, and NIA is going to expose the truth about the government’s conspiracy to turn American students into debt slaves in our next feature documentary, coming in April.

It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at: http://inflation.us

Shout This!
[Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [Ma.gnolia] [MySpace] [Reddit] [Slashdot] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!] [Email] More »
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite PicLens

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

The Question of Imperialism

Mar 27

Posted by ImpeachCongress in Abuse of Power, Opinion | No Comments

By: Jeremy Egerer

Of the many difficult questions a person can ask about the rights of man, one of the toughest is whether the people of a country are ever their own supreme authority. To err toward an absolute “yes” or “no” seems to lend credibility to a variety of atrocities, and trying to strike a balance between the two extremes can plunge the answer into useless subjectivity. But a good answer is readily available for those who concern themselves with sound principles.

First, a claim to nationhood is a positive claim to geographical authority, which implicitly forfeits jurisdiction beyond a country’s expressly defined boundaries. But this jurisdiction may be extended should desperate situations or intolerable violations of natural law occur (Second Treatise of Government, sect 144). As such, a nation’s majority vote by itself does not necessarily grant that nation’s behaviors international legitimacy, as our natural rights provide the basis for both international justice and what is known as imperialism.

Second, those totally rejecting the legitimacy of imperialism oftentimes forget that most people, whether citizens of the USA or the UAE, have not had the opportunity to enter into a social contract. In fact, most are born under the authority of governmental entities, regardless of consent. In addition, although many vote to influence their government, the ability of individuals to reject authority according to their personal reason and cultural development is not necessarily a universal right. Instead, most people find themselves under the legal authority of others, both past and present.

And thus, it is necessary to recognize that the moral value of the democratic republic exists partially in its reflection of the majority’s will, but never in a refusal to subject unwilling citizens to law. Interventionism, for its part, can be similar to strictly national laws in that people are held to moral standards regardless of their consent, and by countries which they did not necessarily form or expressly choose. And perhaps more interestingly, this similarity increases greatly when influenced governments are ruled by despots.

Third, it is only fair to say that even should the entire world not arrive at an entirely uniform consensus of what is “good,” for a people to become less evil and more good under the influence of others is not only beneficial, but moral. And conversely, it is fair to say that a people remaining evil or influencing others to become more evil is not only less beneficial, but also wrong.

Therefore, since no nation can ever be its own supreme authority, and all governments must force someone to abide by law against his will, and positive influence is always good, the question arising from cultural imperialism is not whether it should take place. Rather, the question concerns who is right and what is good.

Herein lies great danger, as even the most ignorant and unstable people are oftentimes convinced that if the world were Plato’s allegory of the cave, they would be the sole escapee to have discovered the sun, and they thus believe themselves entitled to impose their “enlightenment” upon others. Within this tendency toward narcissistic ignorance is found the likelihood of barbaric imperialism, by which morally inferior cultures seek to influence others by force or the threat thereof, for purposes contrary to the unalienable rights of man.

Resulting from such immoral imperialism, two primary reasons exist for a nation’s forgoing interventionism. The first reason exists in the acknowledgment of multiple morally variable, ethnocentric cultures with armies, and thus in the interest of self-preservation. But the second reason for non-intervention, which errs in the opposite philosophical direction of wrongful imperialism, results from a relativistic, multicultural worldview.

It is interesting to note, however, that while many multiculturalists claim to oppose cultural imperialism and an objective code of morality, their actions suggest otherwise. In one instance, President Obama decries our “imperialist” past, yet he declares that “[t]he genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all.” It is impossible for Darfur to shame us unless we are called to justice beyond our borders in order to stop those who — also in the name of necessity, morality, and even democracy — commit atrocities.

Thus, the only true and moral answer to the question of intervention is that there lies within man an understanding, however polluted by environment and selfishness, of natural law (as explained by C.S. Lewis). There must either be a standard by which men judge both themselves and the world, or men must never war, intervene, argue, or vote unless something affects them in a displeasing way. That is to say, they must only act entirely selfishly. And if man’s motives are entirely rooted in subjective selfishness, then he has lost his claim to moral superiority in affairs both foreign and domestic. In short, he must always appeal to a universal concept of civilization if civilization is to exist at all.

America’s forefathers knew where this code of civilization originates. It is not in contradictorily defined and enforced ideals such as liberty and equality, and it has not evolved from the ape to the human, nor is it evolving in our day and age. It is and must necessarily be a declaration from our Creator, a Truth which exists beyond the authority of the human, beyond the tampering of intellectuals, beyond culture, beyond race, and beyond nation (Second Treatise, sects 135 and 136). And to those who disagree, it is only fair to ask from where their Truth and rights come and whether or not someone who disagrees with them has a right to enforce another standard.

It must be confessed that the purpose of this article is not to foster an interest toward the invasion of every country in the name of human rights. Americans are not moral enough as a people to do so, nor do they have the resources to do so, nor would uncivilized people necessarily recognize the benefit of Judeo-Christian liberty given to them against their will. But it must be recognized that cultural imperialism in itself is neither necessarily evil nor disposable, and it is practiced by almost every person on the globe on some level or another. In certain cases — such as nearly uncivilized Rome — it has even been beneficial in the long term. And it must also be realized that conservatives (particularly Biblical Christians) have been hoodwinked into rejecting the universal applicability of conservative values, yet leftists will not reject the universal applicability of leftism.

Americans must understand that imperialism is not imperialism when it is an enforcement of real, objective morality. Rather, imperialism under these circumstances becomes the cause of justice, of righteousness, and of goodness. But without the firm acknowledgment of the Noble Code, man’s government comprises subjectivity, sheer will, and brute force, with tyranny as his only form of intervention.

Jeremy Egerer is a recent convert to Christian conservatism from radical liberalism and the editor of the Seattle website www.americanclarity.com.

Shout This!
[Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [Google] [Ma.gnolia] [MySpace] [Reddit] [Slashdot] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!] [Email] More »
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite PicLens

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,