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Well, it's mostly obnoxious because the person asking for a cite isn't actually interested in seeing evidence, they just think it's a gotcha that means they win, and of course they are not going to change their position.
So having read your excerpt, I'll say this: if everything happened exactly as described in those paragraphs, it's certainly a case of some feds engaging in sketchy and almost certainly illegal behavior. But there are a lot of reasons I remain skeptical. The only references I can find to this egregious abuse of power, (in which IRS agents supposedly forced parents to pay for the daycare center's taxes?) is Bovard's book and a few rightie websites. The actual actions described make little sense and are almost cartoonish. If all you've got is an anecdote from a right-wing author who wrote a book about how awful and tyrannical the government is, you're being unreasonable in expecting that would "change my position" to agree with you that yes, this is the kind of thing the IRS does. It's certainly an egregious case, but it's also the kind of case with curiously little documentation, that is good fodder for right-wingers to circulate endlessly forevermore as an example of "This one time the IRS did this thing...." You made broad, sweeping claims about how the IRS used to act (at least you have backed down from claiming it is how they act today); is this all you've got?
Okay. So who was taxed on ordinary income on vested stocks that he couldn't sell, and was then impoverished by the IRS for it? I assume you're claiming the situation is that by the time he could sell, the stock value had tanked but the IRS still claimed he owed taxes on the value they had when they vested? I won't say that's impossible, but even as a non-tax specialist, that doesn't sound quite right, and I would, again, like to see an actual example of how this worked.
Indeed.
I've seen two versions of what paper the parents were supposed to sign. One was that the day care was a co-op and thus the parents were on the hook and had to acknowledge that. The other is the parents were agreeing to pay what they owed to the day care to the IRS instead. Why the story seems to have mostly disappeared down the memory hole (at least unless you want to dig into dusty old microfilms), I have no idea.
More just-worlding. It sounds really bad so it couldn't have happened.
If you are a member of a co-op, you must own a share in it, and even then, the IRS can't make you, personally, pay for its taxes. If the coop owes taxes it can't pay, it goes bankrupt, the IRS can seize its assets, and your shares become worthless. There may be some legal way to "reachback" to the owners of the coop, if it's believed they hid assets that came from the coop, but otherwise, this story does not make sense to me.
This makes even less sense. They signed a paper saying "I will pay the tax bill for this coop, which I may or may not have any legal association with whatsoever?" With their kids being held hostage?
Even granted that you really want to believe that the IRS are lizard Nazis, does nothing about this have the faintest whiff of bullshit to you? Again I ask, is this story all you've got?
And anything to say about the apocryphal rich guy who was impoverished by the IRS for owing more money than he ever possessed?
I do.
I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but if you tell me a story about goose-stepping Nazis holding children hostage at a daycare center, I am justified in being skeptical. If I told you about this one time some Republicans did something (and that's why Republicans are Nazis), and all I could point to was an anecdote from some lefty's polemical book, you would be telling me how ridiculous it is for me to expect you to take the story at face value.
I've got a story with references; you've got denying it, even when requested sources were provided, because you think the world is just.
ETA: Oh, and if you don't like that, here is one about the IRS seizing children's savings accounts to pay their parent's tax debts. It's not even from a right-wing source. But of course as soon as I find a horror story that you can't deny because of the source, you'll claim that the IRS acted perfectly reasonably and of course they did that.
I have patiently, painstakingly, and in detail gone over every point of this story and my reasons for skepticism. "You're denying a story with sources because you think the world is just" is not an honest, accurate, or credible summary of anything you have read in my response. Do not think because you are trying to make as much out of the tiny patch of ground you think you can hold regarding this daycare center that I have failed to notice you picking up your hat and quietly slipping away when pressed on every single other point I have disputed in your rant about all the things the IRS supposedly can and does do. This is not me succumbing to a just world fallacy and refusing to believe credible sources; this is you stubbornly clinging to a just-so story and squeezing your eyes shut and screaming when someone says "Wait a minute..." You have been around long enough, and argued other issues with sufficient complexity, that I do not for one second believe you can't actually see the logical problems here; you are just refusing to acknowledge any possible holes in your narrative because... they are holes in your narrative.
Okay, sure, want to argue this one? I'll let you start. Tell me your understanding of what actually happened, the law as it was applied, and why you think it was unjust.
I gave you a story. You demanded a reference. I gave you a reference. You rejected the story among other things because it described the IRS acting too much as cartoon villains. This is a rejection based on nothing but priors of a just world.
You asked how someone could owe more in taxes than they ever had. I gave you a scenario. You then demanded examples. I don't know any examples who are famous enough you could verify them. People who are ruined usually aren't ruined quite as famously as Bernie Madoff or even the Wall Street Bets bunch. "Guy gets screwed by the taxman, ends up with his wages heavily garnished for years" is dog-bites-man.
Why would I do that? I could go some effort and no matter what you'd declare it just. You've already demonstrated that. The IRS didn't literally break open the children's piggy banks to pay their parents tax debt, but they did the next best thing, but that's not enough for you to concede there was any injustice done, nor that this is a pretty cartoon-villain thing to do.
No. I did not reject the story because "it described the IRS acting too much as cartoon villains." I expressed skepticism because, among other things, it described the IRS acting too much like cartoon villains. When someone writes a political polemic and includes anecdotes that have his enemies acting as cartoon villains, anecdotes for which the details seem implausible and documentation seems sketchy, it's entirely rational to be skeptical and want more details. You would absolutely do this if the story contradicted your biases, rather than flattering them. So I pointed out that the actions allegedly taken here by the IRS don't make a lot of sense (even if you believe they are cartoon villains), because tax enforcement.... doesn't work like that. If I got the whole story, maybe I could be convinced everything happened exactly as you are assuming. But it looks very much like a political just-so story. Again, you are not naive, you know perfectly well how both sides use stories like this, distorting what actually happened and eliding important details, and you'd suddenly become the most skeptical and fact-focused person here if it were a story about, say, Trump, acting like a cartoon villain in ways that don't appear to make much sense.
Let's go back through my reasoning. Which part of my understanding of the law and taxes do you think was in error?
Yes. "Giving a scenario" doesn't mean much when your scenario is something you made up out of whole cloth and does not make much sense.
You're the one who said it wouldn't happen to an "average guy." Do you have any actual examples? There is a difference between obnoxiously saying "Link?" as a dismissal, and asking you to substantiate something has ever actually happened rather than just taking it on faith that it did because you say so because you heard it happened once.
You're really fixed on "just world fallacy." Being skeptical when someone insists that every story he hears about his enemies acting like irrational Nazis is true and that questioning it just means you're partisan is not clinging to a just world.
No, no, no. Don't skip over a discussion that you declined and then complain about the imaginary response I gave in your head. Once again: what is the actual thing you the IRS did, what do you think was the (claimed) legal basis on which they did it, and why do you think it was a "cartoon-villain" thing to do? And let's say that it all happened - what assertion about the IRS do you think any of your anecdotes has proved? Even if I stipulated that these two incidents you found old clippings about happened in exactly the way you claim? Can you foresee the application of this same logic about, say, the police, or Republicans, or Jews?
Use some reasoning here.
As I said, priors.
There is a large gap between "average guy" and being famous enough to be heard of.
It means that when someone's enemies indeed act like irrational (or even rational) Nazis, you will not believe that they are.
Yes. My priors are that most people, regardless of ideology, act according to plausible, recognizable motives, and that if someone tells me a story about my enemies acting like lizard people, I should perhaps question the details. Your priors are that your enemies are lizard people so any story that presents them as lizard people should be taken at face value, and anyone who questions the details is just pro-lizard people.
Indeed, but you claimed that this was supposedly "common" during the dot bust era. Presumably, even if it happened mostly to rich-but-not-famous people, there would be some examples, and you would be able to explain how it happened (not just handwave vaguely at unrealized capital gains and taxes on unsaleable vested stocks, the problems with which I have already pointed out). Yet you cannot.
I absolutely believe that people can act like Nazis, including the IRS. Indeed, because there are thousands of cases a year, the story of IRS agents holding kids hostage and making their parents sign some strange, probably illegal agreement, strikes me as unlikely but not impossible. I am willing to be persuaded. But you are trying to persuade me of two things:
Whose priors are being flattered here, and who is approaching the issue with more rationality and analysis? I think that fact that you've gone from posting walls of chaff to a bunch of "nuh uh" one-liners is a satisfactory answer.
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