National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee Newsletter

A new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter is out, with content including:

• possible implications for American tax resisters if Obamacare goes under
• Larry Rosenwald admits that Thoreau is way too radical for him
• reflections on the IRS’s new ability to deny passports to tax scofflaws
• international news, including a redirection tally in Spain, and a report on the Conscience and Peace Tax International conference
• an announcement of the November NWTRCC National Gathering
• Larry Bassett shares his letter to the IRS over his recent $128,005 tax refusal

More links of interest:

• A new TIGTA report says that the IRS frequently rehires employees it has previously fired for a variety of conduct or performance problems. For example:

  Auditors reviewed the records of 213 former employees brought back onboard in the Covington, Ky., office from July 2016 to March 2017 and found 96 had separated from the agency while being investigated. Of those, 19 had potential tax code violations, 4 had accessed taxpayer accounts without authorization, 13 had falsified forms, 2 had misused email or equipment, and 6 had been accused of misconduct such as absences without leave, workplace disruption or failure to follow instructions.

• Meanwhile, the GAO says that the IRS has failed to repair many computer security issues that it has previously identified. “[T]axpayer data will remain unnecessarily vulnerable to inappropriate and undetected use, modification, or disclosure,” the report says.
• Remember the myRA? No? Well, it wasn’t very memorable. It was a way to try to get more people to start up retirement accounts by making it cheaper and easier and less risky. President Obama launched the program in 2014. Here’s what I had to say about it then. In short, I wasn’t impressed. The accounts would ultimately be invested in government bonds, and so would constitute a loan to the government. It seems, though, that very few people were interested in participating in the program. It’s now been scrapped.
• The number of Americans renouncing their U.S. citizenship is on a record-setting pace again this year.