Tag: taxes

Federal Judge Could Force IRS To Release Internal Records in Alleged Political ‘Weaponization’ Case

A federal judge could soon rule on whether the Internal Revenue Service falsified records to target companies for tax penalties, according to new court filings on Friday.

Three companies filed a motion on Friday asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to determine whether there is sufficient evidence that the IRS fraudulently “backdated” documents while cracking down on “syndicated conservation easement” schemes, which allow individuals and corporations to offset their taxes by donating land to charitable groups.

The filing is part of a two-year-long Freedom of Information Act case against the IRS. The plaintiffs, Arden Row Assets, Basswood Aggregates, and Delwood Resources, claim IRS agents hit their companies with millions of dollars in tax penalties without proper authorization, and later fraudulently backdated documents to cover up the misconduct.

If the court decides there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing by the IRS, it could force the agency to release internal records related to the case.

Critics of the tax bureau say the case is a prime example of politicized “weaponization” by the IRS, an agency that has faced extensive budget cuts and layoffs by the Trump administration.

“In the emails between the IRS agents, it’s clear that they know they didn’t properly date the documents, and they seem to have no concern about backdating the forms,” Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general who is representing the companies suing the IRS, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Rosenstein said it appears that agents were “encouraged to pursue penalties in easement cases” which “may have created pressure to pursue penalties even when they failed to get the required approval.”

Over the past decade, the IRS has launched a crackdown against “syndicated conservation easements,” a tax loophole that allows companies to donate undeveloped land to nonprofit groups for a tax writeoff. The easements have been criticized by some lawmakers who say they’re being abused by companies that buy up low-worth land, obtain inflated land value assessments, and then sell off portions to investors looking for tax breaks.

The lawsuit cited internal IRS emails that appeared to show agents discussing backdating forms that authorized millions of dollars of penalties against the plaintiff companies.

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USAID Censorship Scheme Exposed; Global Engagement Center Worked With UK Government And Media Firms To Deploy AI Tools

On Thursday, America First Legal (AFL) released explosive new documents obtained through ongoing litigation against the U.S. Department of State’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), exposing a vast, government-backed censorship operation to silence Americans under the guise of “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “malinformation.” The documents reveal a disturbing alliance between the GEC, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the British Foreign, Commonwealth, Development Office (FCDO), and media censorship organizations, all working in lock-step to manipulate public discourse, control media narratives, and suppress free speech.

The GEC, which was forced to shut down in December 2024, was designed to “combat foreign disinformation abroad.” However, through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, AFL uncovered that the GEC engaged in state-sponsored propaganda, repeatedly using willing participants from private media organizations. Further, AFL’s lawsuit against the GEC revealed that USAID had created an internal “Disinformation Primer” that explicitly praised private sector censorship strategies and recommended further censorship tactics.

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Trump EPA Cancels Funding for Nancy Pelosi’s and Ilhan Omar’s Pet Climate Projects

The EPA canceled two multimillion-dollar environmental justice grants that Democratic Reps. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Ilhan Omar (Minn.) helped to secure just weeks before President Donald Trump took office, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Pelosi helped secure a $20 million grant awarded to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to help develop six green transportation projects—including the purchase of an electric bus, installation of electric ferry charging ports, and creation of a bike-share program. “This project will create a cleaner, greener city where reliable public transportation promotes equity and opportunity for all San Franciscans,” Pelosi said in a statement announcing the grant in December.

Omar, meanwhile, was involved in securing a $10 million grant to build solar panels and energy efficiency upgrades at the Minneapolis American Indian Center and develop a geothermal energy system at the Sabathani Community Center. The partnership between the two Minneapolis-based community centers would strengthen the resilience of an area that is “home to low-income communities disproportionately impacted by climate change,” Omar wrote to the EPA months before the agency awarded the grant.

“Recent examples of the importance of these two legacy organizations includes [sic] their response to the civil unrest following the murder of George Floyd and how they served as critical resources throughout the pandemic,” she wrote in the letter obtained by the Free Beacon.

The Minneapolis partnership and San Francisco development projects, a source familiar told the Free Beacon, are among the more than 400 environmental justice and DEI-related grants that EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, in collaboration with the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, has canceled in recent weeks.

The EPA’s actions to revoke the grants highlight the EPA’s and, more broadly, the Trump administration’s efforts to curb spending. Zeldin ordered EPA officials to conduct a line-by-line review of grants disbursed by the Biden administration. Overall, the Trump EPA has clawed back more than $1.7 billion awarded under the previous administration and terminated eight grants worth $20 billion for a “green bank” program.

“It is our commitment at EPA to be exceptional stewards of tax dollars,” Zeldin said this month.

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Rep. Andy Ogles Drafts Article of Impeachment Against Longtime Democrat Activist Judge Over Ruling That DOGE Likely Violated Constitution by Shutting Down USAID

Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN) has drafted an Article of Impeachment against radical activist U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang.

This decisive action comes in direct response to Judge Chuang’s recent ruling, which obstructed the Trump administration’s efforts to streamline government operations by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Judge Chuang, an appointee of Barack Obama, issued a 68-page opinion asserting that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) initiative to dissolve USAID likely violated the Constitution.

He ordered the restoration of email and computer access to all USAID employees, including those placed on administrative leave, effectively halting the administration’s cost-cutting measures.

Representative Ogles asserts that Judge Chuang’s ruling oversteps judicial boundaries and undermines the executive branch’s authority to manage federal agencies.

In a post on X, Ogles wrote, “An Obama appointee and lifelong Democrat who blocked Trump’s travel ban in 2017. This judge literally peddled critical race theory as editor of the Harvard Law Review. Now he’s trying to save USAID, which gives money to terrorist and radical LGBTQ+ propaganda. Impeach him!”

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The DOGE-ed Agency Whose Employees Lived ‘Like Kings’

A new report claims that an agency that Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency just shuttered was on a satirical level of corruption, living like wealthy aristocrats off taxpayer funds.

Trump ordered seven federal agencies either to be downsized or to be eliminated altogether last week, and The Daily Wire accuses one, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), of being particularly egregious in its unconstitutional and unconscionable waste. Supposedly, FMCS is an “independent agency” that mediates between businesses and unions, with a workforce of 230, of which 60 supposedly worked in a massive D.C. office building (when they showed up to work at all).

FMCS official George Cohen ordered champagne, $200 coasters, and his wife’s oil paintings using agency money. Why should Hunter Biden be the only “artist” surviving off corrupt handouts? The paintings were of agency employees “like they were reigning kings or something,” one employee put it. And $2,402 was spent just on retouching the painting of one who was the acting agency head for a brief period only. As small as the agency is and as vague as its relationship to the president and the executive are, the agency has long operated as if it had no oversight, Luke Rosiak said on The Daily Wire.

[FMCS] occupied a nine-story office tower on D.C.’s K Street for only 60 employees, many of whom actually worked from home, prior to the pandemic. Its managers had luxury suites with full bathrooms; one manager would often be “in the shower” when she was needed, while another used her bathroom as a cigarette lounge. FMCS recorded its director [Scot Beckenbaugh] as being on a years-long business trip to D.C. so he could have all of his meals and living expenses covered by taxpayers, simply for showing up to the office.

Rosiak explained that in a year of research, he found numerous shocking instances of FMCS corruption and fraud, from hiring practices to credit cards to contracting to vacations on the taxpayer dime. What he did not understand after all that research is why the agency ever existed to begin with.

“Let me give you the honest truth: A lot of FMCS employees don’t do a hell of a lot, including myself,” one employee confessed to Rosiak. “Personally, the reason that I’ve stayed is that I just don’t feel like working that hard, plus the location on K Street is great, plus we all have these oversized offices with windows, plus management doesn’t seem to care if we stay out at lunch a long time. Can you blame me?” We the People sure can.

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Why is the U.S. Military Involved in Fighting “Climate Change” at All?

President Trump’s Pentagon is making a bold move to refocus America’s military on its core mission – winning wars, not battling climate change. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is leading the charge to eliminate what he calls “climate zealotry” from defense spending as part of a broader effort to streamline military operations.

At a glance:

  • Trump administration plans to cut Pentagon climate programs as part of 8% budget reduction over five years
  • Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth states military should focus on “deterring and winning wars, not climate change”
  • Pentagon has already canceled multiple climate studies, including assessments of climate impact on African stability
  • Department of Defense Climate Resilience Portal has been taken down
  • Pentagon working with Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to eliminate what officials call “woke chimeras of the Left”

Trump Administration Refocuses Pentagon on Core Mission

The Trump administration is making significant changes to Pentagon priorities, cutting programs related to climate change as part of a broader initiative to reduce defense spending by 8% over the next five years. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been explicit about the shift in focus, declaring that addressing climate concerns is not part of the military’s core responsibilities.

Defense Department spokesman John Ullyot reinforced this position, stating that “climate zealotry and other woke chimeras of the Left are not part of that core mission” of deterring, fighting, and winning wars. The administration’s efforts include reviewing contracts to eliminate billions in climate-related spending across the department.

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Schumer Mocks “Greedy” Americans for Questioning Taxation

Minority Leader of the US Senate Chuck Schumer admitted on national television what the government thinks of the people—your money belongs to them. “Their attitude is, ‘I made my money all by myself. How dare your government take my money from me?’” Schumer stated in a mocking tone.

“I don’t want to pay taxes. Or, I built my company with my bare hands. How dare your government tell me how I should treat my customers, the land and water that I own, or my employees?” Schumer, with an estimated net worth of $81 million, continued. “They hate government. Government’s a barrier to people, a barrier to stop them from doing things. They want to destroy it. We are not letting them do it, and we’re united. Okay.” This further emphasized his view that certain individuals see the government as an obstacle and wish to dismantle it.”

People hate the government due to career politicians like Schumer who believe they have the right to control the people through excessive taxation. Schumer and others who constantly push for tax increases genuinely believe that the people are stealing from the government. Forget that you pay taxes on everything you own, sell, and save—the government needs MORE to fund agendas that the people do not vote on.

DOGE has been highlighting how utterly irresponsible and reckless government spending has become. No one voted to fund transgender care in Bangladesh, for example, or the infinite funds sent to secure foreign borders. The Constitutional protection of no taxation without representation has been eliminated. It matters not how much the government collects from the people as it will NEVER be sufficient to cover their spending, let alone the national debt that is a ticking time bomb.

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DOGE Staffer BREAKS SILENCE on IRS Disaster: “30 Years Behind Schedule, $15 Billion Over Budget”

Sam Corcos, a DOGE deputy and special adviser to the U.S. Treasury Department, sat down with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Thursday and unloaded a jaw-dropping exposé on the IRS and Treasury.

Corcos, the co-founder and CEO of Levels—a health-tech company that uses real-time biological data to help people make smarter food choices—was brought in to assess the IRS’s so-called “modernization” effort. What he found? An unaccountable leviathan hemorrhaging of tax dollars.

“A huge part of our government is collecting taxes. We cannot perform the basic functions of tax collection without paying a toll to all these contractors. We really have to figure out how to get out of this hole. We’re in a really deep hole right now,” DOGE representative Sam Corcos said.

Corcos told Ingraham that one of his top priorities during his six-month tenure is to review the IRS modernization program, along with other operational and budgetary matters.

Corcos revealed that the IRS’s so-called modernization project is not only 30 years behind schedule, but also a jaw-dropping $15 billion over budget.

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Trump Signs Order Eliminating Department Of Education “Once And For All”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said all the critical functions of the Department of Education will remain, ahead of President Trump signing an executive order to dismantle the federal agency.

“The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today. As you know, the president’s executive order directed Linda McMahon to greatly minimize the agency. So, when it comes to student loans and Pell Grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education,” she told reporters at the White House, referring to McMahon, the Education secretary. 

“The great responsibility of educating our nation’s students will return to the states. Any critical functions of the department … will remain,” Leavitt added.

Leavitt’s comment comes as the president said he wants the department completely eliminated, but that would require an act of Congress, which is unlikely to happen since 60 votes would be needed in the Senate.

*  *  *

As Zachary Stieber detailed earlier, via The Epoch Times, President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on March 20 that will facilitate the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, taking a step toward fulfilling a campaign pledge.

The order, which has been under preparation for weeks, will be signed at a White House event with several Republican governors and state education commissioners in attendance, as confirmed by the White House. The plan was first reported by USA Today.

Trump will direct his recently confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take all required steps to prepare for the closure of the Education Department and transfer its authority to the states, according to a White House fact sheet obtained by NTD TV, sister media of The Epoch Times.

According to the fact sheet, the order also aims to ensure that, throughout the process, there is no disruption in the delivery of services, programs, and benefits that Americans rely on.

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Incoming… President Trump to Sign Executive Order to Eliminate Department of Education

President Trump will sign an executive order to abolish the Department of Education as early as Thursday, USA Today reported.

Finally.

Earlier this month the Senate voted 51-45 to confirm Linda McMahon as the 13th Secretary of Education.

President Trump vowed to wage war with Education Department and give power back to the states.

“On Day 1, I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto the shoulders of our children,” Trump has said. “And I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate.”

Trump said he wants to strip the entire department.

“We’ll have one person plus a secretary, and all the person has to do is, ‘Are you teaching English? Are you teaching arithmetic? What are you doing? Reading, writing and arithmetic, and are you not teaching woke?’ Not teaching woke is a very big factor, but we’ll have a very small staff,” Trump said on the campaign trail in October.

Last week Secretary of Education Linda McMahon ordered Reduction in Force layoffs targeting half the department’s over 4,000 employees, effective Friday, March 21.

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