PROVISION GIVES AGENCY BROAD NEW POWERS …
|| by RON PAUL || A little-noticed provision in the highway funding bill Congress passed this week threatens a right most Americans take for granted: The right to travel abroad. The provision in question gives the Internal Revenue Service the authority to revoke the passport of anyone the IRS claims owes more than $50,000 in back taxes.
Congress is giving the IRS this new power because a decline in gas tax receipts has bankrupted the federal highway trust fund. Of course, Congress would rather squeeze more money from the American people than reduce spending, repeal costly regulations, or return responsibility for highway construction to the states, local governments, and the private sector. On the other hand, most in Congress fear the political consequences of raising gas, or other, taxes. Giving the IRS new powers allows politicians to increase government revenue without having to increase tax rates. Some even brag about how they are “cracking down on tax cheats.”
Pro-IRS politicians ignore how this new power will punish Americans who have actually paid all the taxes they are legally obligated to pay. This is because the provision does not provide taxpayers an opportunity to challenge a finding that they owe back taxes in federal court before their passport is revoked. Because IRS employees are not infallible, it is inevitable that many Americans will lose their right to travel because of a bureaucrat’s mistake.
It is particularly odd that a Republican Congress would give this type of power to the IRS considering the continuing outrage over IRS targeting of “Tea Party” organizations. This is hardly the first time the IRS has been used to intimidate its opponents and/or powerful politicians. Presidents of both parties have used the IRS to target political enemies.
For example, one of the articles of impeachment brought against Richard Nixon dealt with his attempt to have the IRS audit those Nixon perceived as political enemies. During the 1990s, an IRS agent allegedly told the head of an organization supporting then-President Bill Clinton‘s impeachment, “What do you expect when you target the President?” Can anyone doubt that some Americans will be targeted because an IRS bureaucrat does not approve of their political beliefs and activities?
Some support giving the IRS new powers because they think that those who underpay their taxes somehow raise everyone else’s taxes. This argument assumes that the federal government must collect the maximum amount of taxes because the people cannot do without big government. Of course the truth is that the people would be better off without the welfare-warfare state. Wouldn’t we be better off without a national health care program that increases health care costs, or without a war on terrorism that led to the rise of ISIS? Freeing the people from taxation, including the regressive and hidden inflation tax, is just one of the many ways the people will benefit from restoring constitutionally limited government.
As the federal debt increases and the American economy declines, an increasingly desperate Congress will look for new ways to squeeze more revue from taxpayers. Thus, the IRS will increasingly gain new and ever more tyrannical powers over Americans, including new restrictions on the right to travel or even move capital out of the country. The only way to end the IRS’s assault on our liberties is for the people to force Congress to stop looking for new ways to pick our pockets, and instead usher in a new era of liberty, peace, and prosperity by demolishing the welfare-warfare state.
Ron Paul is a former U.S. Congressman from Texas and the leader of the pro-liberty, pro-free market movement in the United States. His weekly column – reprinted with permission – can be found here.
18 comments
Just pay up, enough money to travel, then pay the taxes
Seems rather odd to keep tax cheats in the USA where they can continue to cheat
Would it not be better for the IRS to take out a large double death benefit insurance policy on the cheat with the IRS as beneficiary and mail a new passport to the cheat along with a one way ticket to Syria
hmmmmm …..
Sometimes, Ron Paul leaves me with “question marks” hanging over my head, but in this case, he is right on the money. The IRS should have absolutely no responsibility for controlling access to international travel.
The IRS should be shutdown and and a flat tax implemented.
Sadly, that will never happen. The power of the IRS increases like a cancer.
True, and it metastasized in the form of Lois Lerner.
A Republican controlled Congress did this. So when people want me to blindly be a cheerleader for the Grand Ole Party they can kiss my butt. We need some anti establishment types in DC now.
YES!
Fitsnews has repeated accusations from anonymous sources connected to opposing campaign(s) that Marco Rubio committed adultry.
On that accusation, alone I predict Marco Rubio will be the Republican nominee and will be elected our next president in 2016.
The kid don’t stand a chance against the Clinton Machine.
Just renounce your citizenship, then the IRS will do its best to keep you out of the country.
Like guns, voting, etc., Laws are only for the smucks who are lawful. How about the IRS quit sending hundreds of millions fraudulently to Mexico? This isn’t about a money shortage, this is about control and power.
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Think about it. If you owe $50,000 in unpaid taxes, wouldn’t it make sense to keep you from heading overseas and never coming back? I mean, that would be like taxes on $250,000 in income.
Interesting. I wonder if well known 7+ figure tax cheat like Al Sharpton and Warren Buffett will be restricted from foreign travel?
Whenever I think about how the political parties, the media, and the gubamint did their best to demonize this man and unfortunately the millions of sheeple who blindly followed them in doing it; a line from the movie Idiocracy always comes to mind:
Do you really want to live in a world… where you try to blow up the one person that’s tryin’ to help you?