If this doesn't scare you, you're dead

[thebullet]

IRS Tracked Taxpayers' Political Affiliation
By Les Blumenthal
The Tacoma News Tribune

Friday 06 January 2006

Washington - As it hunted down tax scofflaws, the Internal Revenue Service collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a member of an appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the IRS, said the practice was an "outrageous violation of the public trust" that could undermine the agency's credibility.

IRS officials acknowledged that party affiliation information was routinely collected by a vendor for several months. They told the vendor last month to screen the information out.

"The bottom line is that we have never used this information," said John Lipold, an IRS spokesman.
"There are strict laws in place that forbid it."

Washington state residents do not express a party preference when they register to vote. Residents of 20 other states and the District of Columbia have to provide a party affiliation when registering. Voter registration information is publicly available.

Murray said she learned about the problem from the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelly. The IRS is part of the Treasury Department.

"This agency should not have that type of information," Murray said in a telephone interview from Seattle. "No one should question whether they are being audited because of party affiliation."

Kelly said Thursday that several IRS employees had complained to the union about the practice. She said IRS officials weren't even aware of it until she wrote them in late December.

In a letter to Kelly, Deputy IRS Commissioner John Dalrymple said the party identification information was automatically collected through a "database platform" supplied by an outside contractor that targeted voter registration rolls among other things as it searched for people who aren't paying their taxes.

"This information is appropriately used to locate information on taxpayers whose accounts are delinquent," he said.

Murray and Kelly, however, remained skeptical.
Kelly said the collection of such data was even more troubling because the IRS intends to start using private collection agencies later this year to go after back taxes.

"We think Congress should suspend IRS plans to use private collections agencies until these questions have been resolved," she said.

According to Murray's office, the 20 states in which the IRS collected party affiliation information were Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.

 

[rgraham666]

If I was asked to register a party when I register to vote, my party would be "None Of Your Fucking Business!"

 

[BlackShanglan]

I imagine I must be dead. It doesn't look scary to me. It looks like the same business as the NSA cookies - someone not really understanding how the automated system works.

*shrug*

It's hard for me to work up much fear over this. I pay my taxes, I have all of the paperwork, and everything is up to date. They're free to audit me if they like.

Shanglan

 

[Liar]

Washington state residents do not express a party preference when they register to vote. Residents of 20 other states and the District of Columbia have to provide a party affiliation when registering. Voter registration information is publicly available.

Don't be upset that the IRS collects info from a public record. That is barking up the wrong tree.

But are you telling me that in those 20 states, party affiliation is not a private matter? That I must give up how I plan to vote to a public record, in order to vote? That is scary. Why the hell are political opinions registered in a democracy?

 

[TheEarl]

Don't be upset that the IRS collects info from a public record. That is barking up the wrong tree.

But are you telling me that in those 20 states, party affiliation is not a private matter? That I must give up how I plan to vote to a public record, in order to vote? That is scary. Why the hell are political opinions registered in a democracy?

That's the bit that struck me as well. Why the hell should you have to tell people whom you're voting for before you can vote? Aside from anything else, you might change your mind depending on the policies. I mean, that is what the whole campaigning thing's about, isn't it?

The Earl

 

[R. Richard]

Don't be upset that the IRS collects info from a public record. That is barking up the wrong tree.

But are you telling me that in those 20 states, party affiliation is not a private matter? That I must give up how I plan to vote to a public record, in order to vote? That is scary. Why the hell are political opinions registered in a democracy?

You do not have to give a party affiliation to vote in an ELECTION in most states. However, you can't vote in a party PRIMARY in many states unless you are registered as a member of that party.

The reasoning behind the need for party registration is to prevent a major political party with a set candidate from crossing party lines to make sure the other party is forced to run "Joe Zero" instead of the other party's preferred candidate.

 

[R. Richard]

That's the bit that struck me as well. Why the hell should you have to tell people whom you're voting for before you can vote? Aside from anything else, you might change your mind depending on the policies. I mean, that is what the whole campaigning thing's about, isn't it?

The Earl

Earl:
To amplify my preceeding comment. You can vote for anyone you damn well please in an ELECTION. If you are a, says, Democrat and you want to vote for the Republican, well and good, vote away. However, if you are a, say, Republican and you wish to vote for one of the Democratic candidates in the primary you are, in political terms SOL.

 

[TheEarl]

You do not have to give a party affiliation to vote in an ELECTION in most states. However, you can't vote in a party PRIMARY in many states unless you are registered as a member of that party.

The reasoning behind the need for party registration is to prevent a major political party with a set candidate from crossing party lines to make sure the other party is forced to run "Joe Zero" instead of the other party's preferred candidate.

Well, that's okay. In England, you have to be a member of a political party in order to get asked on whom their leader should be and sometimes you don't even get asked. It's entirely internal to the politicians.

I wouldn't join any party, since it seems that leaves you open to being utterly dogmatic about things. My allegiance is very much to the Tories atm, but if Labour or Lib Dems started putting out sensible policies, then I'd look at them. Signing up for one seems to mean you're very much against change.

The Earl

 

[Liar]

You do not have to give a party affiliation to vote in an ELECTION in most states. However, you can't vote in a party PRIMARY in many states unless you are registered as a member of that party.

Ah yes, that part I understand. Primaries are internal party affairs IMO. If you are a member of a political party, you have made a choice to shout it from the rooftops. But it should never apply to the regular voters, the Joe Blow who tips the scale one way ot the other. The only place where I should state my opinion is on a sealed and anonymous ballot.

The reasoning behind the need for party registration is to prevent a major political party with a set candidate from crossing party lines to make sure the other party is forced to run "Joe Zero" instead of the other party's preferred candidate.

I have to read that papragraph a few million more times before I reply. It is in alien tongue to me. How does a party cross a party line? How can one party force another partys candidate off the race? I can see how it could happen by "stealing" that candidates main issues. But does that have anything to do with pre-registered voters? Gimmie an example, because I don't get it. At all.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

In Sweden, there are no primaries, only elections - the election for government/municiapl office and regional office. all at once - and the occasional voting in some very important matter, like last time when we voted whether or not we were going to exchange the Swedish currency Krona for the Euro.
(Though I suspect such votings will be less usual in the future, since the politicians were very crossed with the Swedish population - even though they told us how to vote, we went ahead and voted the way we wanted, anyway! They'll not let us have that much freedom again, seeing as we abuse it to get the will of the majority rather than the will of the politicians!)

You don't have to tell a living soul whom you voted for or whom you're going to vote for, or anything.

The whole concept of having to reveal whom you're gonna vote for sounds very undemocratic to me.

 

[Liar]

A question there: Are many Americans "passive" party members? If I was to guess, only a few percent of the voting population, (4, maybe 5%) are registered members of any political party over here. And those are the active politicians and election volunteers, basically. If you are a party mmber you work actively with the party.

That might make the impact of primaries and their counterpart quite important, if the people voting there are a major part of the population.

 

[R. Richard]

I have to read that papragraph a few million more times before I reply. It is in alien tongue to me. How does a party cross a party line? How can one party force another partys candidate off the race? I can see how it could happen by "stealing" that candidates main issues. But does that have anything to do with pre-registered voters? Gimmie an example, because I don't get it. At all.

OK, the Democrats have only one candidate, the incumbent. The Republicans have three candidates. Two of the Republican candidates are serious threats to the Democrat. The third Republican candidate has only one issue, "Dog license taxes are too damn high!" Of the 50% of the voters who are Democrats, 60% of the 50% = 30% vote for Joe Dog in the Republican PRIMARY. Of the 50% of the voters who are Republicans, 24% vote for Joe Republican1, 24% vote for Joe Republican2 and 2% vote for Joe Dog. However, with the added 30% vote from the crossover Democrats, Joe Dog wins the Republican PRIMARY. Joe Dog, of course, has no chance against Joe Democrat who waltzes to victory in the election.

 

[Liar]

OK, the Democrats have only one candidate, the incumbent. The Republicans have three candidates. Two of the Republican candidates are serious threats to the Democrat. The third Republican candidate has only one issue, "Dog license taxes are too damn high!" Of the 50% of the voters who are Democrats, 60% of the 50% = 30% vote for Joe Dog in the Republican PRIMARY. Of the 50% of the voters who are Republicans, 24% vote for Joe Republican1, 24% vote for Joe Republican2 and 2% vote for Joe Dog. However, with the added 30% vote from the crossover Democrats, Joe Dog wins the Republican PRIMARY. Joe Dog, of course, has no chance against Joe Democrat who waltzes to victory in the election.

Again. PRIMARIES are internal party elections. I have no beef with them being decided by card-carrying party members.

But what does that have to do with general voting registering? Thats what I'm not getting. And if people are hell-bent on sabotaging the primaries by signing up for the opposite party and voting for the bozo, how is that stopping them anyway? Is it by saing, "I'm gonna vote for the Dems" in voting registering that you get the right to vote in the Dem primary election?

 

[thebullet]

BS Wrote:
It's hard for me to work up much fear over this. I pay my taxes, I have all of the paperwork, and everything is up to date. They're free to audit me if they like.

Methinks you are missing the point, BS. The tools are now in place for the Party in Power (read NEOCONS) to bring finally tuned financial pressure on people they don't like. It isn't dissimilar from what Nixon was doing in the 70's, having the IRS audit specific enemies. But this takes that trick to a whole 'nother level. They can audit an entire class of people - democrats - merely for being in the opposition party.

Perhaps you don't care if you are auditied - spoken like a person who has never been audited. But perhaps other people don't want the time, the expense, the pressure to disrupt their lives.

This is a serious abuse of power we are witnessing. Of course the IRS is saying that they would never use the information. When was the last time a government agency told the truth when they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar?

They are all a bunch of fucking liars. But now they want to use government agencies to abuse their enemies.

America used to be a democracy.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

America used to be a democracy.

Methinks that the last time this world experienced anything CLOSE to true democracy was when it was called Pangaea...

 

[zeb1094]

America used to be a democracy.

Not since 1776 it hasn't! The United States of America was founded as a Republic, not a democracy!

 

[thebullet]

Not since 1776 it hasn't! The United States of America was founded as a Republic, not a democracy!

Well excuse me!!!

 

[Liar]

Not since 1776 it hasn't! The United States of America was founded as a Republic, not a democracy!

Cool. Nothing to worry about then.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Well excuse me!!!

Actually, he's right. 100% right. That's why we elect people into office, to represent us, since we aren't voting personally on each issue. It's wise not to forget that.

Secondly, I live in PA, and I recall having been asked that on every occasion when registration (yes, I've done this more than once) was concerned, even before Bush was in office. Not everything that takes place in politics is the man trying to get you down.

Chill, huh?

Q_C

 

[BlackShanglan]

Liar -

I believe that the missing piece in the puzzle on the topic of why one registers a party is that the same mechanisms and polling places are used for both primaries and general elections. That is, the party doesn't independently poll its members; it's a public pre-election voting session called the "primaries" in which everyone goes to the same place and votes for the candidates according to party. The purpose of primaries is not to elect the final holder of office, but for each party to choose one of the possible candidates to take place in the final election. For this reason, one has to register a party when registering to vote so that the officials know for whom one is permitted to vote in the primaries - in order to prevent all of the Republicans voting for the least popular Democrat, and vice versa. Your registered party doesn't tell you how you can vote once the parties have narrowed down to one candidate each and it's the actual election; it just tells you which primaries you can participate in.

Bullet, I did see your point. I think I'm just a bit lackadaisical about politicians. They are, in my eyes, all equally corrupt, and I wish them much joy out of causing as much difficulty as possible for each other. The more time they spend digging into each others' tax returns, the less time they have to get organized about their various other forms of corruption. I can't really imagine them being interested in the tax returns of a porn-writing horse; I acknowledge that it's conceivably possible that this is some sort of vast conspiracy, but given how many people would have to be involved and how unlikely it would be that they would all want to be in on it, I think human stupidity a better answer. They had a database and another company - not even the IRS - using it to find out who lives in the state; one of the searched data sets, the electoral rolls, happens to contain political party information. It seems more likely to me that the results were due to people not really thinking about it rather than a determined attempt to audit the living hell out of Democrats. If the Republicans really had that much power with the IRS, I should think that they'd just deliberately falsify a few returns for key players rather than cast a 20-state-wide net over random voters to see whom they could annoy.

Shanglan

 

[BlackShanglan]

Accidental double post.

 

[Liar]

Liar -

I believe that the missing piece in the puzzle on the topic of why one registers a party is that the same mechanisms and polling places are used for both primaries and general elections. That is, the party doesn't independently poll its members; it's a public pre-election voting session called the "primaries" in which everyone goes to the same place and votes for the candidates according to party. The purpose of primaries is not to elect the final holder of office, but for each party to choose one of the possible candidates to take place in the final election. For this reason, one has to register a party when registering to vote so that the officials know for whom one is permitted to vote in the primaries - in order to prevent all of the Republicans voting for the least popular Democrat, and vice versa. Your registered party doesn't tell you how you can vote once the parties have narrowed down to one candidate each and it's the actual election; it just tells you which primaries you can participate in.

Thanks, it's starting to make sense....slowly.

So primaries are public, and not for only for party members? And you sign up to vote in those at the same time you register for the final election? K. Got it. But you could still sign up for the Dem primaries, even if you intend to vote Rep in the final round. I mean, what's stopping you? Armed men checking that your final ballot is in accordance with what you said at the registration?

And if a bloke don't care about the primaries, and just want to cast his vote on election day for whatever candidate represents his side, does he still have to register an affiliation? My affiliation pre-election day is usually "I have no idea, yet."

 

[Boxlicker101]

Generally speaking, in California anyhow, you register to vote, if you want to, when you turn 18 years old, when you move from one city to another and when you change party affiliation. I usually list myself as independent, because I have heard it helps you avoid being called for jury duty.

The party affiliation is basically a matter of public record because individual candidates in the primary elections use the info to send out requests for contributions and advertisements. When instructions on where and when to vote are sent out RE primary elections, they are sent to voters according to their listed affiliation.

Besides narrowing the field to one candidate from each party, the primaries also narrow the field for candidates in non-partisan elections and vote on bond issues and other matters. There is nothing secret about the info and the IRS can get it easily if it feels it needs it.

 

[Liar]

There is nothing secret about the info and the IRS can get it easily if it feels it needs it.

And if it is a public record as the article says, so could your landlord, your neighbor and your kids' schoolteacher, no?

Just checkin'.

 

[imalickin]

And if it is a public record as the article says, so could your landlord, your neighbor and your kids' schoolteacher, no?

Just checkin'.

yep! so what! so is the title to your car, your house, any land you own, any court proceedings you have been involved in, your bankruptcy, divorce, etc.

all a matter of public record, there for anyone that wishes to bother to look it up. so you people been livin' under a mushroom?