The entire UBS mess is getting even uglier, and by uglier I mean better: The curtain is being peeled back on the infamous secrecy of Swiss banks. The largest bank in Switzerland, UBS, agreed Wednesday to reveal the names of wealthy Americans whom the authorities suspect of using offshore accounts to evade taxes. The change […]
The employer of Phil Gramm, the very man who championed to get rid of banking regulations and served as an economic adviser to the McCain Campaign, has been busted: UBS AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, will pay $780 million to avoid U.S. prosecution and settle regulatory claims that it helped thousands of wealthy Americans use Swiss […]
Why? Because if you make any kind of living before trying to get confirmed to the government then you are under fire: The White House’s nominee for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, has earned more than $700,000 in speaking and consulting fees since the beginning of 2008, with some of the payments […]
33 pastors went out yesterday and endorsed John McCain from the pulpit, breaking the IRS rules put into effect in 1954. Will John McCain stand by and let this vagrant disregard for our democracy take place? These ministers must be punished for their lack of respect for our laws. Their churches must also now pay […]
Last week we heard how Bush was pandering to the richest Americans even more by eliminating jobs at the I.R.S. that are charged with looking into the tax returns of these people: The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service who audit tax […]
Bush will do whatever it takes to protect his rich buddies: The federal government is moving to eliminate the jobs of nearly half of the lawyers at the Internal Revenue Service who audit tax returns of some of the wealthiest Americans, specifically those who are subject to gift and estate taxes when they transfer parts […]
We have had a daily dose of Republican absurdness for the past couple days, but here are a couple that just really stand out to me. First up is Senator Charles Grassley, who has now found a fight against prostitution and sex trades and a way to fight them: Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa […]
This is a nice defeat for the GOP: Senators voted Thursday to reject a Republican effort to shrink taxes on inherited estates during this election year. GOP leaders had pushed senators to end the tax once and for all. It disappears in 2010, under President Bush’s first tax cut, but rears up again a year […]
While they are not concerned with churches that support Republican candidates or tell members to leave their church if they voted for Kerry, the Republicans sure do worry about the NAACP: Several Republican members of Congress sent letters to the Internal Revenue Service questioning whether the NAACP had veered into political advocacy and asked for […]
The issue of churches taking an active position in partisan politics is heating up: In a challenge to the ethics of conservative Ohio religious leaders and the fairness of the Internal Revenue Service, a group of 56 clergy members contends that two churches have gone too far in supporting a Republican candidate for governor. Two […]