Some bits and pieces from around the web:
- I haven’t had a chance to look this over yet, but it might be interesting: “Whistleblowers and Tax Enforcement: Using Inside Information to Close the ‘Tax Gap’ ” — a paper by Edward A. Morse
from the Creighton University School of Law. Abstract:
This article examines the current legal structure allowing rewards for informants who provide information to assist the IRS in the enforcement of the tax laws. IRS data suggest that informants are a cost-effective means of enhancing tax enforcement. The Tax Relief and Health Care Act of introduced a separate whistleblower award program that provides even higher rewards (up to 30 percent of the amount collected) and greater certainty in the payment of such rewards, including a process for enforcing reward claims against the government through litigation in the Tax Court. Although the whistleblower provisions may enhance tax enforcement, they also raise significant issues concerning taxpayer privacy and IRS secrecy in the context of lawsuits to enforce reward claims. Moreover, prospects for large financial rewards without comprehensive attention to eligibility constraint may effectively induce prospective whistleblowers to breach other legal or ethical responsibilities. The article argues that these important issues deserve more careful attention from Congress, and should not be relegated to administrative or judicial development.
- Roderick T. Long at Liberty & Power reviews the evidence that Etienne de la Boétie’s “Discourse of Voluntary Servitude” was actually written by Michel de Montaigne.
- Remember that Army recruiter who called up a high school student and left a message on his answering machine threatening him with arrest if he didn’t come in to get recruited? And remember how when this scandal hit the press, the Army shut down their recruiting stations nationwide for a day to retrain recruiters in appropriate methods? What happened next? “just two months later… instead of punishing Sgt. Kelt, the Army had promoted him to the role of station commander at a neighboring recruiting station. That meant he would supervise and train other recruiters on how to do the job.” And recruiters continue to lie to potential recruits — telling them that they’ve signed binding contracts to join the Army when they’ve done no such thing, and threatening them with arrest if they decide against joining up.
