IRS Scandal explodes. "no evidence that would support a criminal prosecution."

[Matt1970]

Really? You have an example?

Nope, nobody has ever gone to jail over taxes.

 

[ivwshane]

Nope, nobody has ever gone to jail over taxes.

Not paying them, yes, for not keeping records? I'm asking for an example, do you have one?

 

[Jaskalas]

HARD DRIVES DESTROYED

Is there no limit to this criminal organization?

 

[Victorian Gray]

HARD DRIVES DESTROYED

Is there no limit to this criminal organization?

Did you miss the point about it being standard practice? Do you know of any business or govt. agency that would keep 'dead' hard drives around once it was determined that they were, indeed, dead? I mean, why would they? They're dead.

 

[MooseNSquirrel]

HARD DRIVES DESTROYED

Is there no limit to this criminal organization?

There's definitely no limit to some people's imaginations.

Hell I'd love to "imagine" that my IBM Deathstar hard drive from a number of years ago can be recovered despite its failure. I can even image that the freezer trick works.

Guess I will just have to live with the memories.

 

[boomerang]

We'll deal with the root cause of this problem in November.

 

[Matt1970]

Not paying them, yes, for not keeping records? I'm asking for an example, do you have one?

You are so missing the point. IRS employees are playing by their own rules.

 

[Jaskalas]

Did you miss the point about it being standard practice? Do you know of any business or govt. agency that would keep 'dead' hard drives around once it was determined that they were, indeed, dead? I mean, why would they? They're dead.

Unless purposefully wiped clean, there'd still be data on them. Experts take them apart and salvage them. But you're right, why would a criminal organization want to keep or restore a copy of their records?

When using a government office / organization to target political opponents, it's best to destroy the records.
Nixon only wishes he could have gotten away with acting on his "enemies list".

 

[xBiffx]

At this point, destroyed hard drives are immaterial as well as predictable given the situation to date. Fact remains, federal record keeping laws were still broken if those hard drives contained the only copy. Whether or not they were destroyed/recycled doesn't matter at that point. Many at the IRS are implicated in this. Start cleaning house!

The way this thing has unfolded is pretty suspect as well. Congress requests emails. After a lengthy delay, the IRS says they were lost nearly three years before the request from Congress. No mention of that at the time of the request. So Congress subpoenas the hard drives themselves. Another delay then the IRS says that the drives were destroyed. Again, no mention at the time of the subpoena or the original request for emails that this was the case.

In any other organization, everyone would be involved and several would likely be in jail. But this is the IRS, and this type of behavior/shoddy record keeping is or has become SOP. Again, start cleaning house!

 

[bshole]

Unless purposefully wiped clean, there'd still be data on them. Experts take them apart and salvage them. But you're right, why would a criminal organization want to keep or restore a copy of their records?

When using a government office / organization to target political opponents, it's best to destroy the records.
Nixon only wishes he could have gotten away with acting on his "enemies list".

Our company policy is to physically destroy the hard drives. It may even be federal law - Sorbannes/Oxley. Doesn't really matter anyways, all data is stored on the network. That is backed up for years, everything is retrievable.

 

[hal2kilo]

Our company policy is to physically destroy the hard drives. It may even be federal law - Sorbannes/Oxley. Doesn't really matter anyways, all data is stored on the network. That is backed up for years, everything is retrievable.

There is no way according to at least the NAVSECINST for a hard drive to be declassfied other having it physically destroyed by an NSA sactioned facility.

 

[boomerang]

Congress plans to cut the IRS budget by 15%. They'll just have to keep chipping away at their budget until they no longer have the means to destroy hard drives. The power of the purse seems to be the only avenue left.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/house...t-halts-obamacare-enforcement/article/2549830

Regardless, if Lerner followed IRS procedures, she made hard copies of her emails. She's going to come under fire one way or another.

 

[Jaskalas]

At this point, destroyed hard drives are immaterial...
Start cleaning house!

How does one clean house? Isn't that the President's job?

I'm betting this President supports the criminal organization.

 

[boomerang]

I'm betting this President supports the criminal organization.

Anyone who thinks they are not an enforcement arm of the government at this point is in serious denial. The bigger issue, and why it's important to pursue this is that regime's change and along with that so does their focus. Do we really want the government to be emboldened by a lackadaisical electorate? It won't end well. At what point will it become important to restore the balance of power within the government? It should be a top concern for everyone regardless of their political leanings.

 

[Genx87]

Our company policy is to physically destroy the hard drives. It may even be federal law - Sorbannes/Oxley. Doesn't really matter anyways, all data is stored on the network. That is backed up for years, everything is retrievable.

Sarbanes\Oxley also requires email retention periods for years.

 

[nageov3t]

next time someone gets hit with an audit, they should just claim that they lost all their records in a computer crash and see how that flies.

 

[hal2kilo]

Really? You have an example?

All I know I was working at my desk at the home office, when all of the sudden all these guys with black jackets which had either FBI or Federal Marshall filled up the room. They said stop what ever you are doing, do not turn off yor PC's, then marched all about 25 of us into a small conference room.

Sat there for the next 15 mins. Then they let us out. My understanding was they walked off with about 13gb of emails from the exchange server.

Seems some ex discruntled employee accussed us of some sort of malfeasance.

Turned out not to be true, but talk about puker factor.

Yes, they are very serious about keeping all records.

 

[hal2kilo]

So now were several pages of posts into this thread and I'm confused.
The narative seems to have evolved from, we know the IRS had to have acted from orders out of the White House. To Well you know the IRS is a tax collecting arm of the government, conservatives don't like taxes so only pro-tax liberals work for the organization. They had a vested interest in going after political organizations thaT are anti tax, and became rougue and are out of control?

Please esplain it to this poor simpleton.

Maybe it's both that would be the trifecta then.

 

[TerryMathews]

So now were several pages of posts into this thread and I'm confused.
The narative seems to have evolved from, we know the IRS had to have acted from orders out of the White House. To Well you know the IRS is a tax collecting arm of the government, conservatives don't like taxes so only pro-tax liberals work for the organization. They had a vested interest in going after political organizations thaT are anti tax, and became rougue and are out of control?

Please esplain it to this poor simpleton.

Maybe it's both that would be the trifecta then.

Even if neither is true it would seem that the IRSs actions demonstrate disparate impact.

 

[JockoJohnson]

Obama could kick down the door of some of these retards and kill their whole family and they would find ways to excuse him. He could also bring world peace and people would still hate him for doing just that.

It doesn't matter. Everybody wants to see what they only want to see. Never going to change anyone's mind about how they feel about him.

I don't think it is as big of a scandal as Republicans make it out to be but something is amiss. In this thread, I see most people are on both extremes -- nothing bad was done at all OR this is the biggest scandal ever. I have a feeling that it is somewhere in between. There was wrong doing but how severe, I do not know and neither does anyone else at this point. It needs to be investigated.

 

[xBiffx]

So now were several pages of posts into this thread and I'm confused.
The narative seems to have evolved from, we know the IRS had to have acted from orders out of the White House. To Well you know the IRS is a tax collecting arm of the government, conservatives don't like taxes so only pro-tax liberals work for the organization. They had a vested interest in going after political organizations thaT are anti tax, and became rougue and are out of control?

Please esplain it to this poor simpleton.

Maybe it's both that would be the trifecta then.

From the beginning there was no way to know if the WH had connections to this. The email hunt was not specifically about the WH, it was part of the larger investigation as to what nefarious actions were going on at the IRS. Regardless of where that led, it needed to be stopped. Repubs wanted it to lead to Obama, libs it seems didn't want to be bothered with the whole thing but definitely didn't want the Rebups to get a win, that much is certain. Regardless of which party's side you are on, the actions of the IRS should be a major concern to everyone.

Regardless of whether or not emails and information is released that directly links this to the WH, the WH is knee deep in this anyways because of their unwillingness to take action. Holder should have this investigation on the top of his list if there is going to be any semblance of justice in the DOJ.

 

[werepossum]

Congress plans to cut the IRS budget by 15%. They'll just have to keep chipping away at their budget until they no longer have the means to destroy hard drives. The power of the purse seems to be the only avenue left.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/house...t-halts-obamacare-enforcement/article/2549830

Regardless, if Lerner followed IRS procedures, she made hard copies of her emails. She's going to come under fire one way or another.

Cut it by 100% and replace all income taxes with the FairTax OR with income taxes levied, collected, and forwarded by the states. In one step, most Americans' most feared agency virtually disappears.

 

[werepossum]

Did you miss the point about it being standard practice? Do you know of any business or govt. agency that would keep 'dead' hard drives around once it was determined that they were, indeed, dead? I mean, why would they? They're dead.

That would be every business not run by idiots if the data contained is legally required to be retained. It's very practical but very expensive to have hard drives dismantled and the data recovered. It's even more expensive to be tried, fined and imprisoned for spoilation.

 

[boomerang]

Cut it by 100% and replace all income taxes with the FairTax OR with income taxes levied, collected, and forwarded by the states. In one step, most Americans' most feared agency virtually disappears.

We'd risk giving all our friends on the left heart palpitations if we did that.

 

[PokerGuy]

There was wrong doing but how severe, I do not know and neither does anyone else at this point. It needs to be investigated.

How convenient then that once the investigators started sniffing around Lerner and started getting closer, the emails magically vanished and got destroyed. As I asked before, how exactly do you investigate what's going on at the IRS when the IRS simply refuses to cooperate, destroys critical evidence in the case, and the DOJ refuses to do anything about it because they're on the same team??