IRS

The War of The Atheists

Posted on by Helena

The Supreme Court refuses to define what is ‘religion’. If there is no legal definition, then how can Atheists assert they are not a religious organization. And how can an atheist organization obtain charitable foundation status? According to the IRS, “private foundations generally support other public charities or other foundations with grants.” However, there is status within the context of ‘educational’. This would only be available if it is to ‘make the public aware’, the moment the actions become politically motivated then the status has been breeched.

Murky is as murky does: “Rev. Rul. 68–263, 1968–1 C.B. 256, holds that the publication of material which discredits particular institutions and individuals on the basis of unsupported opinions and incomplete information about their affiliations is not educational.”

A foundation’s attempts to discredit Christians, Christian beliefs and churches would seem to be a – breech.

A quick overview of some of the form 990’s filed by these organizations shows some discrepancies or oddities. For example, one organization had one employee whose annual compensation was roughly 40% of donations, their cost for accounting services was exceedingly high, and their ‘consultants’ cost was also worrisome. The statement of time spent per week working for the organization was 105 hours – that would equate to 15 hours per day 7 days per week.

Another foundation whose contributions totalled $3.88million in 2013 holds a “Cash Balance” in their asset section of well over $11million. I’d say they were not spending their charitable contributions very well if they have accumulated such a ‘profit’. Their revenue for 2013 was $3,878,938 and their spending was $2,163,375 leaving an annual profit margin of 44%! That’s a lot of profit for a non-profit!

Could these foundations be construed to be ‘educating’ for the purpose of lobbying for a particular political outcome? “Exemption under IRC 501(c)(3) is precluded for those organizations which are substantially engaged in attempting to influence legislation…”

Is ‘educating’ people to convert to atheism – proselytizing?

Proselytize: to recruit or convert to a new faith, belief or cause… When these foundations use the media to denounce religion and the church and provide the option to convert to atheism, they are now the proselytizer.

At what point does proselytizing become harassment? When is freedom of speech breeched? The legal definition of freedom of speech is: “to express beliefs and ideas without unwarranted government restriction.” So if a person wants to announce their belief, it is an expression. But when does this concern the separation of church and state? It doesn’t because it is superceded by the Constitution which declares, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.”

Therefore, making a law that abridges this freedom of speech, such as invoking separation of church and state, is unlawful, and the First Amendment shall take priority.

And ad in a newspaper harshly condemns Catholicism. So does ‘expressing or sharing’ your faith qualify as proselytizing? Legally, no. Because then it would make every atheist potentially criminal for even stating they are atheist – which is their ’cause’ or ‘faith’.

This has become such an explosive issue of late that it bears discussion. The legal definition states: atheism is the belief that gods do not or can not exist. The problem is the use of the word ‘belief’. The definition of ‘belief’ is; confidence in the truth or existence of something that is not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof. Given that an atheist can not ‘prove’ the belief that there is no God, their faith is a belief.

For a time atheists were actively seeking status as a religion, however, when the ramifications of this became apparent, they backed off. As a religion, no material in school could refer to the non-existence of God, no theory of evolution could be taught, discrimination cases would be launched, and science would have to be revealed as a ‘theory’ of faith. The concept was dropped immediately.

Why do people become atheists? The resounding answer is because they feel that God is not keeping the world safe and pure, and therefore He must not exist. Of course, this statement defers to ‘free will’. God created Adam and Eve with free will. Within this freedom, they sinned. We still have free will, we are free to sin or not to. Our sins create an unsafe and impure world. God wants us to be pure, but He can’t force us, he cries when we sin, it brings great grief. Grief is born of Love.

When did atheism become so far flung in your face antagonistic, arrogant and smug? Because it didn’t used to be so. I had a friend who said she objected to reciting in school, “…one nation under God…”. Okay, then don’t say it. At issue is the notion that we cater to the one instead of to the eight. At issue is the fact that 12% of the US population identify themselves as ‘atheists’.

Personally, I take no issue in people who desire to identify as Atheist, or Buddhist, or Hindu, or whatever they prefer. I take issue with the constant harassment and unethical attacks perpetrated against Christians so as to make us follow the doctrine of your nothingness. I take issue with the ridiculous idea that suing is the answer to all your problems. I take issue with the notion that you are so self consumed that it is all about you. It is hypocritical and bullying. Every blank, empty wall space that is not covered with religious identity is virtually the identity of Atheism.

At issue is the notion of tolerance and the absolute intolerance of atheists in their pursuit of emptiness for all.

IRS GESTAPO

Posted on by Helena

The IRS employs roughly 100,000 people. The total requested budget for 2014 including for Program Operations amounted to $13,358,007,000. And somehow they just can’t seem to make ends meet. No one feels sorry for them. The Commissioner for the IRS, John Koskinen refers to the IRS employees as ‘long-suffering’.

IRS Agents make about $82,000 on average, Customer Service Reps make about $44,000, and Special Agents about $120,000. Taking a look at what these ‘long suffering’ people are rewarded is making me nauseous:

1) 2/3 of cost of health insurance,

2) long term care insurance,

3) ‘the best retirement program in the world’, per their website, FERS, the employee contribution is currently set at .08% which amounts to roughly $65 on the annual average salary

4) life insurance,

5) on the job training,

6) reimbursement of college course expenses,

7) merit and job performance rewards (their website claims their employees are given more than any other government agency),

8) overtime pay AND premium pay for working more than 8 hours in a day,

9) 4 hours annual leave per pay period, which is every two weeks, adding to 2.6 weeks per year

10) 4 hours per pay period for sick leave = 2.6 weeks per year

11) 10 paid holidays,

12) the ability to telework from home,

13) free childcare

14) free counselling services

15) locality pay adjustments – for example if you live in Houston or LA, your base rate is adjusted up about 28%. There are over 30 different city areas that have bump up adjustments

To qualify as a grade GS-7, you need a bachelors degree with an overall gpa of 3.0 or higher. The overall average IRS employee salary is $83,000.

Between October 2010 and December 2012, the IRS paid more than $2.8 million to about 2,800 workers with ‘recent conduct issues’. A conduct issue includes willfull failure to pay taxes, unauthorized access to a taxpayers private information, abuse of agency leave policy, misuse of IRS property, falsification of official forms, and behavioral problems. None of these issues qualified the individual for firing, instead they were given bonuses. These are the ‘long-suffering’ employees the new Commissioner lauds. The bonuses included more than $1 million in cash awards for roughly 1,100 employees with federal tax-compliance problems.

But their budget and conduct woes do not end. Between 2010 and 2012, the IRS spent $50 million on conferences. And remember the illegal targeting scandal? The targeting occurred in 2010, was discovered in 2013, and the ‘investigation’ continues. No one has been sanctioned. No one fired. No fines. No fees. The FBI has concluded that there was no evidence that might require criminal charges being filed for the corruption. And like Hillary, the solution was to crash Lois Lerner’s hard drive, and wipe clean and scrap her phone. Case closed.

Because our government is inherently corrupt, we have another government agency whose task it is to investigate and squash fraud from within. This agency is called The Government Oversight and Reform Committee.

Now the IRS is facing more problems as it confesses to wasting millions of dollars on decorative items and blames the Republican party for these sprees given budget cuts have made their workload over taxing. One Senator even went so far as to state that the budget cuts never even hurt the IRS, they just hurt the American people. Really? And to make it better, they want more money. Specifically, they want $490. million just to enforce Obamacare penalties, and $122.8 to enhance greater collection of taxes.

SEIZURES: As of 2012, the amount of funds that the IRS had seized from individuals aggregated $3.2billion. The IRS may seize any property or cash from a taxpayer based on ‘suspicion’ of an illegal activity. Most taxpayers forfeit the money because getting an attorney to fight the IRS costs more than the value of the asset and can take upwards of 6+ years. One third of all the cases involved no criminal activity whatsoever. Contrary to normal US law, it is the citizen’s responsibility to prove innocence in order to get their property returned. The money and properties seized are available to the agency making the seizure without any appropriation by Congress. The IRS has stated that going forward it will curtail these sort of seizures and try not to target individuals where there is no suspicion of the money involved coming from an illegal source.

So where is the IRS spending such a huge chunk of its budget? According to the CATO Institute, there are two main categories of IRS functioning; handouts, which include tax credits including Obamacare subsidies, and administration which is the basic functioning – tax return processing, help, enforcement and other. Of the two categories, administration costs have remained relatively unchanged, while handling of credits has jumped more than 400% since 2000.

It would appear that the IRS is scrambling for more money in order to be the caretaker of Obamacare which is seriously cutting into the benefit package for their ‘long-suffering’ employees. Are you feeling sorry for them yet?