Talk:Internal Revenue Service/Archive 1

message: Where are all the checks deposited?  And where does FICA go?  When Homer Simpson goes to the post office at 11:59 on April 15, or when Ned Flanders sends his check from his money from the Leftorium in on January 2nd, where does the I.R.S. put the money? and what interest do they get?  Is it in CD format?  Do they get 10.11%, 10.59, 10.99% interest?  I really need to know this as I am trying to write about this at a forum.  --McDogm 02:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citibank, Wells Fargo, Fleet, BoA, Nomura Securities, Bank of Montreal? 

message: Substituted at 20:33, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: I want to check the numbers, but you didn't cite where your stats are actually from, I assume it's from some IRS report, this much and type of data must be cited directly, meaning exactly what and where to find the report.UoLMephesto (talk) 01:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Please cite Tax collection statistics

message: On 2 January 2006, someone at 24.226.10.98 attempted to put up a label to the effect that the neutrality of this article is disputed, with an assist from someone at 68.39.174.238 on 6 January 2006. A reference was made to the verbiage above, which is tax protester rhetoric that really seems to be disputing the validity of the income tax laws, not the information in the Internal Revenue Service article. In my view, the POV label is not appropriate on the article page for Internal Revenue Service unless there is a serious dispute about something in this particular article AND the dispute is actually described on the Talk page. Famspear 01:35, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: POV label removed

message: The verbiage "the court system WILL NOT and CANT allow any argument to set a precedent" and "[s]etting a legal presedent [sic] such as determining that most everyone is not liable for the income tax would result in massive revenue loss, which would cause our fragile debt system to collapse" seems to be implying that all the thousands of Federal judges are engaged in some sort of conspiracy to incorrectly interpret the tax laws. Yes, that's it, a huge conspiracy -- and all the law professors and Congressmen and all the lawyers and CPAs and enrolled agents -- all those thousands of people are in on the conspiracy too (they would have to be).
Also, the statement that "[o]ne CAN NOT file a federal tax return without WAIVING your 5th Ammendment [sic] Rights" is incorrect as a matter of law, as the Garner case shows. See the United States Supreme Court decision in Garner v. United States, 424 U.S. 648 (1976). See also the Wikipedia article on the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The statements: "At the bottom of every signature page on a Federal return, the ststement [sic] 'Under penalty of pergury' [sic] is written" and "This is where you sign away your rights" are also incorrect as far as the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination is concerned -- unless of course the taxpayer actually fails to assert the privilege in the tax return and instead discloses the incriminating information. Famspear 02:03, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Commentary on the comments above

message: Three of the links at the bottom of the article are to sites that advocate changing the way that taxes are currently collected.  I don't really see any reason why these should be posted specifically to the IRS page, especially since they only link to one meretricious side of the tax collection issue.  Shouldn't they be moved to the article on tax collection in the United States? Oldkinderhook 00:57, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links at bottom of article 

message: Hello. I can't fina anything on Wikipedia about "private letter rulings", the non-precedent-setting, one-off determinations they'll sometimes make. Some of them can get even get a little bizzarre: "On April 15, 2004, I will truthfully report to the IRS that my primary source of income is the sale of imaginary goods [in the online game EverQuest]—and that I earn more from it, on a monthly basis, than I have ever earned as a professional writer." . Ewlyahoocom 10:52, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Private letter ruling? 

message: The detailed info on the US Income Tax is duplicative of that article and doesn't belong here. Joncnunn 16:27, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me thank you for your yeoman-like work with the tax stuff and your steadfastness in not letting the silly tax resister basura folk stop you. Wnat do you think... NYU Tax or Gtown Tax LLM? DC is the seat of the IRS John wesley 18:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Tax rates, progressivity and the like is tax policy Bona Fides 13:13, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  needs trimed down 

message: According to 446(b), Treasury may change the method of accounting of a taxpayer to better reflect income and expenses.  That is deny a current expense deduction until cash is actually paid. Bona Fides 18:14, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Discretion to rearrange income recognition [http://www.fourmilab.ch/uscode/26usc/www/t26-A-1-E-II-A-446.html Section 446(b)] 

message: Dear fellow editors: I have moved the section on the "voluntary" Federal income tax system with the quotation from the IRS web site over to the article on Tax protester statutory arguments, since the Flora rule, etc., included in this text is already discussed at the other article. I would suggest that the article on the Internal Revenue Service focus on the IRS itself, rather than the tax system or a particular aspect of one particular Federal tax (in this case, the income tax). Yours, Famspear 20:44, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Voluntary tax system

message: The following text, while probably true, has no suppporting citation and thus was removed until citation can be provided:
"Taxpayers should be aware that the IRS does not initiate communications, or ask for information, by e-mail.  Phishing scammers pretending to be Treasury officials are using this means of communication to steal personal data from individuals."
::Dear fellow editors: Maybe there's something in IRS official announcements or publications that backs this up. I'll look and see if there's anything to support this. Stay tuned. Yours, Famspear 14:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The IRS never sends out unsolicited emails, and under no circumstances, requests credit card information and pin numbers through email.  Persons receiving emails that claim to be from the IRS should not attempt to visit any site contained within the email and should report suspicious emails to TIGTA or IRS.
Downloaded on 13 September 2006
--Yours, Famspear 18:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK, I stuck it back in there with a cite. Shortfuse 02:13, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: IRS and Phishers

message: "In fiscal year 2004, the IRS collected $43.1 billion in enforcement revenue. This is an increase of $5.5 billion (15 percent) from fiscal year 2003."
I don't know what the true numbers are, but that statement has some obvious mathematical deficiencies.
:Um, the numbers do too add up! 43.1 - 5.5 = 37.6. 15 % of 37.6 equals 5.5 (or rather 5.6, but saying "14 percent" would be more off.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.214.130.33 (talk) 18:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numbers Don't Add Up 

message: The following material has been moved from the article:
::In cases where an individual or organization wished to sue an individual who works under the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, then a suit would be filed against the particular individual, while suits against the agency itself would be filed against the Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
The language was moved because it's unclear what the editor is trying to say. The language is not necessarily "incorrect," depending on what it is intended to mean. The language is, however, ambiguous.
In a literal sense, anyone in the United States can "sue" anyone else. That is, anyone can go down to the court house and file a pleading with the clerk of the court, which technically institutes a lawsuit.
However, certain lawsuits may not be maintained (may not be continued) in the face of an adverse motion for dismissal, based on various legal grounds. For example, in a U.S. District Court, normally if you sue the "Internal Revenue Service" or the "Department of the Treasury" or the "Commissioner of Internal Revenue" or an IRS employee in his or her capacity as an IRS employee, the government may come in, assert something called Sovereign immunity, and move that your lawsuit be dismissed becaue the court therefore lacks what is known as subject matter jurisdiction. There are exceptions to this rule, but this is the general rule.
Thus, the statement that in "cases where an individual or organization wished to sue an individual who works under the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, then a suit would be filed against the particular individual" is somewhat misleading. Yes, you can file the suit, but if the government asserts sovereign immunity, then you may either be thrown out of court or forced to amend your lawsuit to change the defendant to "United States of America." Again, there are exceptions to that rule.
Similarly, the statement that "suits against the agency itself would be filed against the Commissioner of Internal Revenue" is misleading. Suits against the IRS itself normally should be filed not against the "Commissioner of Internal Revenue" but instead against the "United States of America."
Now, just because the government has the right to make you change the name of the defendant or get you thrown out of court does not mean that the government always does that. At least one case has gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court with the party listed as "Internal Revenue Service" rather than "United States of America." And, as stated, there are also exceptions to the rule. For example, if you're fighting taxes in the United States Tax Court, you do sue the "Commissioner of Internal Revenue" (as a Respondent, not as a Defendant).
In short, there are so many exceptions and clarifications to the rule that would need to be inserted to clarify the language that I have moved the language to this talk page, as the language raises more questions and issues than it clarifies for the article. Yours, Famspear 19:51, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Language regarding lawsuits

message: This section seems to be trivia and probably not notable enough to include in this article (see WP:AVTRIV).  I think we should remove it.  Morphh  (talk) 18:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and reverted the material, per above. Yours, Famspear 19:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The IRS in popular media

message: I deleted the material on the frivolous tax protester rhetoric about section 6020(b) and the power of the IRS to assert penalties. The deleted material is only indirectly related to this article, and is already covered at Tax protester statutory arguments. This is a chronic problem in tax article on Wikipedia: tax protester material keeps seeping into the main articles when such material is already covered in articles devoted specifically to tax protesters. See Tax protesters; Tax protester arguments; Tax protester constitutional arguments; Tax protester statutory arguments; Tax protester conspiracy arguments; Tax protester history. There is already plenty of coverage of tax protester arguments. Yours, Famspear 16:09, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Duplicative tax protester material deleted

message: Looks like some kind of bird holding a set of scales by a palm tree (and seems to be designed by the same designer as the Coat of arms of Iran). Anyone have an explanation? Lisiate 03:48, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's up with the creepy logo? 

message: Your link http://www.neo-tech.com/irs-class-action/ does not work. In addition, even if it was a valid link, it is not verifiable by nature of being nothing more than claims to injury. Goodpaster 15:23, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear Goodpaster: To whom are you sending the message about the "neo-tech" link? I don't see any such link in the article or here on the talk page (except in your post). Famspear 17:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Found it and removed. :-) Morphh  (talk) 17:18, 09 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I finally just saw where you did that. I guess I need more caffeine or something. Famspear 17:19, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Invalid Link 

message: Just read this section and I find it inaccurate on several accounts and like Famspear, I'm not sure it should be included.  For one, Ron Paul is not the only one that wishes to get rid of the IRS.  Five of the Eight major Republican candidates support the FairTax, which eliminates the IRS.  Other minor Republican candidates also support this plan.  In addition, the IRS collects more then 1/3 of the Federal revenue.  While 1/3 of the Federal revenue comes from the personal income tax, you have the other third coming from payroll taxes, corporate income taxes, estate taxes, excise, etc (which are administered by the IRS).  While Ron Paul holds libertarian principles, he is running as a republican and as I've mentioned above, many Republicans want to abolish income taxes.  Heck - Mike Gravel (Democrat pres candidate) wants to abolish the IRS and income taxes.  So I'm not sure this sentence really has any significance.  Morphh  (talk) 21:26, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Congressman Ron Paul, a Republican candidate, is the only Presidential hopeful for the 2008 election in the major parties that has called for the abolition of the IRS. Paul asserts that only a third of federal revenue comes from the income tax, and that the federal government could be scaled back to the size it was seven years ago when it was a third smaller. The Libertarian Party also advocates abolition of income taxes and nominated Ron Paul as their candidate for President in 1988.
Yours, Famspear 21:36, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Abolish the IRS?

message: Does anyone have any info about the symbolism behind the IRS logo? It seems rather peculiar and usually one can find historical and even mythical references hidden in the symbols of government agencies (although I'm aware IRS is not strictly a government agency)
Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.221.40.3 (talk • contribs)  (10 Oct. 2007)
::I don't have any specifics. The logo appears to be an eagle holding the scales of justice. And the Internal Revenue Service is indeed strictly a government agency. (The idea that the IRS is not a government agency is an urban myth that originated with tax protesters.) Famspear 13:54, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  IRS logo - symbolism 

message: The following tax protester rhetoric has been moved from the article to here:
[spam material deleted due to copyright]
[end of tax protester rhetoric moved from article]
Please discuss below. Yours, Famspear 21:27, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Tax protester rhetoric moved from article

message: An anonymous user at IP66.215.112.253 has been adding tax protester gibberish to this article repeatedly (seven times since October 16, I believe). Wikipedia articles are not the proper place to dump material that has simply been copied and pasted from other web sites in the way you have done.
The material in question appears to come at least in part from losthorizons.com, a notorious tax protester web site. The operator of the web site is an ex-con who is currently in serious legal difficulty with respect to Federal income taxes. Also, in a separate case the web site has been named by a Federal court as being part of a tax evasion scheme. This material is not appropriate for a Wikipedia article. Yours, Famspear 04:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Copyrighted tax protester gibberish

message: I have deleted some tangential material on the history of the U.S. Federal income tax in the middle of the article. First, the material is already covered (in several tax articles, I think). Second, this article is about the government agency that administers U.S. internal revenue laws -- not about the history of the laws themselves. Third, the deleted material in question dealt only with a particular aspect of the history of income tax -- and income tax is only one of the many kinds of tax laws administered by the IRS. Fourth, the Internal Revenue Service administers virtually all Federal internal revenue laws -- not merely the tax laws.
Fifth, I have noticed over the past two years in Wikipedia that "tax-related articles" in general tend to gradually fill up with repetitive material already covered in other tax articles. While some of this is unavoidable (and a little duplication is perhaps beneficial), the duplication of information chronically grows, and eventually gets to a critical mass point where the articles become difficult to manage. Any thoughts, anyone? Famspear (talk) 18:38, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For now, I think all we can do is make sure there are clear links between related articles, to make people aware of the best places to find and put information, and prune occasionally. -- Beland (talk) 21:35, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Some tax history material deleted

message: I can see this section becoming a long list of past commissioners.  Should it even be included? It doesn't seem relevant to anything in the article.Goodpaster (talk) 16:03, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would argue that the current short section on the Commissioner is relevant to the article. I agree that it should not be expanded to become a complete list, but I don't recall seeing any indication of that danger here. I've been watching the article for a year or two. There is a list of past commissioners (a partial list, I think) at the separate article on the Commissioner, so I agree there would be no need to repeat such a long list here. Famspear (talk) 18:11, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Commissioner section 

message: A request for comment has been opened on the general topic of tax protester theories, and whether the articles that address them are NPOV. bd2412 T 18:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Talk:Tax protester/Request for comment]] 

message: Just a reminder that I have proposed to call for a conclusion to this discussion on tax protester rhetoric on February 6. If anyone has anything more to add to the discussion, speak now! bd2412 T 16:56, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Talk:Tax protester/Request for comment]] reminder

message: Federal Hybrid Tax Credit Summary redirects here, but this is not explained in the article. -- Beland (talk) 21:33, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that "Federal Hybrid Tax Credit Summary" should not be set up to redirect to this article. Need to check and see whether the subject is discussed in some article on substantive tax law. To do.... Famspear (talk) 22:10, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Federal Hybrid Tax Credit Summary 

message: I'd like to ad a mention to Customer Account Data Engine (Cade) in this article. Once it is done it will revolutionize the IRS tax return processing and have a huge impact on taxation refunds. The new system is part of the IRS Modernization Plan. Heres a IRS story on it.  Please consider adding it. :) Cool10191 (talk) 14:59, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  CADE 

message: Circular 230 lacks sufficient content or notability for its own article.  However, its content could be easily merged into this article in a section that would let the audience to this article know who may be a taxpayer representative to the IRS.EECavazos (talk) 05:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, I suggest that we merge Individual Taxpayer Identification Number into this article.EECavazos (talk) 05:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm, I agree that the notability for these articles is week, but I'm also not sure that this article is the best topic to merge them into.  I don't have another suggestion at this point, but looking at the content of this article, I don't know where the merged material would fit best - it would seem out of place and off topic.  Let me think about this one.  Morphh  (talk) 12:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Since Circular 230 determines who may be a taxpayer's representative to the IRS, it could foreseeably be put under a section on deficiency assessments and appeals process of the IRS.  This could be done by transforming the tax lawyers section into a broader section encompassing revenue agents, appeals officers, as well as the tax lawyers.  Then some of the ciruclar 230 content could be merged into this article using one or two sentences with a footnote to the document.  Alternatively, is there a separate article on revenue agents and appeals officers of the IRS?  If so then the this circular article could be merged into that article.  Maybe the tax lawyer section (expanded with content on revenue agents and appeals officers) could be merged into the collections section and divided by subsection subheaders like the collections statistic subsection.EECavazos (talk) 23:36, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion: merge [[Circular 230]] into this article 

message: I'm surprised by how short the entry is, but then again, I'm sure some of you are working hard to keep the abuse away.
I'd love to see a good section about the structure of the IRS; something based on this, but more detailed. Binba (talk) 07:29, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  IRS Structure? 

message: A new user inserted a link to the "sedm.org" web site, which was then removed by another Wikipedia editor. The web site is not a reliable source for purposes of Wikipedia.
For future reference: The "sedm.org" web site has been officially identified as being part of a tax-fraud scheme operated by an individual named Christopher M. Hansen. Hansen and his web sites have been the subject of Federal court litigation and a Federal court order. Here is a direct quote from the applicable court order, which states (in part):
:::Defendant Christopher M. Hansen conducts business and promotes a number of tax-fraud schemes under two names or entities: the Family Guardian and the Sovereignty Education and Defense Ministry ("SEDM"). He sells how-to guides filed [sic] with forms, instructions, and tactics to help customers evade paying federal taxes. [ . . . ] Hansen markets his programs through word-of-mouth, live seminars, and his websites www.famguardian.org and www.sedm.org.
--See pages 1 and 2, Order Entering Permanent Injunction (Amended Order), entry 105, Dec. 13, 2006, case no. 05cv0921-L(CAB), United States v. Christopher M. Hansen, United States District Court for the Southern District of California. The "sedm" and "famguardian" materials would not be considered reliable sources for purposes of Wikipedia. Famspear (talk) 15:33, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Tax fraud materials