Keep them down...

The United States is the only major country on the planet that taxes citizens on their worldwide income, no matter where those citizens happen to live.

How is that one! But, wait my wealthy friends, this does not mean you! More on this a little later, but first I wanted to discuss another fact.

The IRS had decided to audit more small businesses and reduce the audits to large businesses thereby making the small businessman that many more obstacles to try to overcome in order to maintain a livelyhood.

The IRS recently made an incredible and inexplicable decision to increase audits of small companies while easing up on the large firms. In fact, the smallest companies saw the taxman 41% more often in 2007 than in 2005, and companies with $10 million to $50 million in assets were 29% more likely to be investigated, according to a new study from Syracuse University.

Meanwhile, companies with more than $250 million in assets were almost 40% less likely to be audited than in previous years - even though an average audit hour of large firms earned the IRS about $7,500, the Syracuse study found, while a similar hour directed at smaller companies turned up $474. Now, keep in mind that an audit takes more than an hour.

Why did this take place? Because the larger corporations have lawyers and accountants that they can afford to pay to drag out an audit for years, while the small company does not. If the IRS is being told by the House Ways and Means Committee to increase their audit returns, their only way of doing this is to make sure that these audits get completed. Hereby, get the guy without representation.

It's a sad reality that the IRS is picking on the smallest of businesses when neither they, nor the country, can afford it. We are over $3 Trillion in debt now due to this administration. The Syracuse study found a 20% reduction in large-business tax underpayments caught by the IRS, from about $30 billion to some $24 billion, between 2005 and 2007. Just last month the Wall Street Journal reported that a Dutch bank is under investigation for allegedly helping big U.S. corporations save at least $1.46 billion in U.S. taxes through highly complex tax shelters. This is a situation the IRS scrutinized only after a whistleblower came forward.

That's a poor approach for a collection service charged with closing the $290 billion gap between the amount of taxes owed and the amount paid.

Tomorrow I will discuss issues on how the United States is the only major country on the planet that taxes citizens on their worldwide income, no matter where those citizens happen to live. So, whether you like it here or not, you will pay no matter if you leave or stay...

Double taxation without representation...Remember the Boston Tea Party? I thought we did away with all of that.