By The Center Square Staff
The new head of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee blasted the Biden administration for giving few answers after thousands of taxpayer files were leaked to an outside group.
House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., sent a letter to Russel George, the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration, raising concerns about the leak of “confidential tax information” and the lack of accountability over that leak.
The issue began when the news group ProPublica reported in June 2021 that it had been given private tax returns for thousands of Americans spanning over 15 years.
From ProPublica:
Thanks to an analysis of its unprecedented trove of IRS data, ProPublica is revealing the 15 people who reported the most U.S. income on their taxes from 2013 to 2018, along with data for the rest of the top 400.
The analysis also shows how much they paid in federal income taxes – and it demonstrates how the American tax system, which theoretically makes the highest earners pay the highest income tax rates, fails to do so for the people at the very top of the income pyramid. The top 400 earners pay noticeably lower tax rates than the merely rich; and, if you include payroll taxes, a married couple making $200,000 a year could end up paying higher tax rates than a person making $200 million a year.
The leak may have had political motives, since it was used to prove, as ProPublica put it, that “the very richest pay lower rates than the merely rich.”
Who was responsible and who will be held accountable are now the lingering questions. Rep. Smith’s letter came the same week that Biden’s nominee to lead the tax-collecting agency took a series of tough questions from the Senate Finance Committee as part of his confirmation process.
In a different hearing, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the Senate Finance Committee in June 2021 that she would look into the leak.
“[Yellen] also indicated that she would keep Congress updated on the matter. Yet, nineteen months after this outrageous leak, Congress, and, more importantly, the American people have no idea how this betrayal of taxpayer confidentiality happened or whether anyone has been held accountable,” Smith wrote in his letter.
Yellen said the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration would handle the matter, but so far few answers have been released, hence Smith’s letter.
And that promise, with a $1.50, you can get a bad cup of coffee. The deep state swamp creatures in government lie to the American people on a regular basis. We can no longer believe a single word they say and it is unknown if and when credibility can ever be restored.
It is simply an understandable fact that those with lots of money can afford attorneys, CPA’s and tax shelters. It’s not like their rate is lower than the middle class, but the effective rate is lower. That doesn’t mean they pay less taxes, as idiot Biden implied, than a waitress (who, by the way, idiot Biden is aiming the IRS at now), but it means that the system that has exclusions, deductions and exemptions in it benefits the wealthy (though they still pay the majority of the taxes).
Want to piss and moan about that? Create a flat tax. Implement a national sales tax to replace the graduated system. But our problem is SPENDING…. WASTEFUL SPENDING, not exemptions and deductions.