Tag: taxes

In 2022, The IRS Went After The Very Poorest Taxpayers

On Wednesday, Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) released data provided to it by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on audits performed by the agency in fiscal year 2022. Despite the infusion of new funding earmarked for the IRS via last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, the agency continued historic trends of hassling primarily low-income taxpayers, with relatively few millionaires and billionaires getting caught up in the audit sweep.

“The taxpayer class with unbelievably high audit rates—five and a half times virtually everyone else—were low-income wage-earners taking the earned income tax credit,” reported TRAC, noting that the poorest taxpayers are “easy marks in an era when IRS increasingly relies upon correspondence audits yet doesn’t have the resources to assist taxpayers or answer their questions.”

In fact, “if one ignores the fiction of auditing a millionaire through simply sending a letter through the mail, the odds that millionaires received a regular audit by a revenue agent (1.1%) was actually less than the audit rate of the targeted lowest income wage-earners whose audit rate was 1.27 percent!”

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August 2022, directed $80 billion worth of new funding over the next decade to the IRS so it could hire 87,000 new workers, purportedly to better target millionaire and billionaire scofflaws. The Biden administration and credulous journalists claimed that this would in no way increase audits for those making under $400,000 annually—suspect assurances not provided within the text of the actual bill. This increased capacity meant only those at the top would be targeted, supporters insisted. But this ignores how the IRS’s incentives work and how agencywide reform might be too heavy of a lift.

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Government Spending Billions To Expand Broadband but Can’t Tell Who Needs It

In November 2021, Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), a $1.2 trillion grab bag of public spending wish list items. One of those projects, the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, would expand broadband access to communities that currently lack access to high-speed internet. BEAD would dole out $42.45 billion in state grants, and the Government Accountability Office estimated that the projects could require as many as 23,000 additional telecom workers to complete.

The only problem is that the government currently has no idea where broadband actually is and is not available.

The government defines broadband as any high-speed internet connection that is always on without needing to dial up. According to the text of the IIJA, “Access to affordable, reliable, high-speed broadband is essential to full participation in modern life in the United States,” especially in an era of remote work and Zoom schooling. As such, the law set out to bridge the so-called “digital divide” wherein some rural and low-income communities do not have easy broadband access.

To determine what areas need investment, the government relies on maps from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). But despite costing $350 million, the FCC’s maps are notoriously unreliable and have been for many years. In 2021, The Washington Post noted the maps are based on census data, so “if even one household in a census block—a statistical area that conveys population data—has broadband available, then the agency considers the entire group served. In rural areas, one block could cover dozens of square miles.” The FCC’s maps also don’t take into account physical impediments, like trees and mountains, which can disrupt wireless signals.

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What’s Inside the Budget for the Secretive DARPA?

The Economist has called DARPA the agency “that shaped the modern world,” and listed weather satellites, GPS, drones, stealth technology, voice interfaces, the personal computer and the internet on the list of innovations for which “DARPA can claim at least partial credit.” These technologies were originally invented for the military aims of the Pentagon. 

DARPA was providing funding and technical support to Moderna’s mRNA vaccine technology since at least 2013. DARPA also had long-time associates and partners at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

A look at their new budget provides a glimpse at what the U.S. Military sees as part of the future of warfare. 

Using machine-learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to manipulate information or human behavior seems to be a priority for DARPA judging by the budget. 

A project named AAI aims to further the “facilitation of operator-machine interface, knowledge management and dissemination, and social context-informed AI forecasting.” The project also aims to include a “focus on measuring and aggregating preconscious signals and how these can be used to determine what people believe to be true.” 

Project SemaFor is being earmarked for hundreds of millions of dollars and will use AI “to identify false information, its origin, and its intent [emphasis added]. A project named ASED is developing “counter-social engineering bots.” A little description of this project is given. 

Once thought to be a thing of only movies and television shows, DARPA plans to further its development of a type of “ray gun.” Project Warden is being earmarked millions of dollars to “amplify the range and lethality of high-power microwave systems and weapons.” 

The World Economic Forum idea of Fourth Industrial Revolution technology, which is partly defined as the merging of the digital, technical and biological systems is also highlighted in the DARPA budget. 

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Coca-Cola accused of paying NAACP to call soda taxes ‘racist’

TrueMedicine Care co-founder Calley Means published a thread to Twitter on Monday, where he broke down the grip that soda companies have over food regulation. Means claimed that his Twitter Blue access and his account is now under review, suggesting that this was due to Coca-Cola being a major advertiser for Twitter.

“Early in my career, I consulted for Coke to ensure sugar taxes failed and soda was included in food stamp funding,” Means claimed.

“I say Coke’s policies are evil because I saw inside the room. The first step in playbook was paying the NAACP + other civil rights groups to call opponents racist. Coke gave millions to the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation – both directly and through front groups like the American Beverage Association This picked up in 2011-2013 – when the Farm Bill and soda taxes were under consideration.”

Means included a screenshot from a Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) report as written about in Nutrition Insight in March of 2013.


Both the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation “received grants from Coca-Cola, with the national NAACP receiving at least $2.1 million from the soda giant since 1986, including $100,000 as recently as December. The Hispanic Federation also lists Coke as a donor, and in February 2012 its president, Lillian Rodriguez Lopez, left the nonprofit group to become director of Latin affairs at the company,” Nutrition Insight wrote.

CSPI’s report noted that Coca-Cola gave the American Academy of Family Physicians a $600,000 grant in 2009 for a new website, and gave a $1 million grant in 2003 to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, which was “seemingly enough to get the president of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry to suddenly hedge the group’s position on the extent to which soda causes cavities,” Nutrition Insight reported.

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Nancy’s golden goodbye: Outgoing House speaker Pelosi raises maximum wage for staff in lower house of Congress by $38,000 to $212,000

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decreed that Congress will once again raise its stiff salary cap for staffers – this time, to an eyewatering $212,100.

Pelosi – whose second stint as House Speaker began in 2019 – announced the change Friday, in what very well could be her last acts before being replaced in the now-Republican-dominated chamber.

It also serves as the third time the 82-year-old San Francisco official raised the maximum salary for House staff – to $199,300 last year and again in May to $203,700 to maintain parity with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

That said, the raise – which pertains to staffers in the lower chamber – now puts the new top-possible salary for aides at $38,000 more than what Senate staffers make themselves. 

In a statement, Pelosi, who is unlikely to continue her term as speaker come Sunday now that Republicans have regained control over the House, revealed the change for the New Year, and detailed her reasoning behind the substantial hike.

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US government funds research on correcting “false beliefs”

The US government is funding research on how to fight online “misinformation” by correcting “false beliefs.” The funding is in partnership with fact-checkers.

On July 7, 2021, the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded a project titled, “How False Beliefs Form and How to Correct Them.”

The NSF allocated $444,345 to Lisa Fazio, an Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development at Vanderbilt University. Since then, the total amount granted to the researcher has reached $506,478, as was first surfaced by a War Room report.

Published on NSF’s website is the grant’s purpose, which states: “There is currently an urgent need to understand the real-world effects of misinformation on people’s beliefs and how to best correct false beliefs.

“Through a series of laboratory and naturalistic experiments, the project team is examining the effects of repetition on belief in real-world settings and how to more effectively counteract misinformation.

“By examining these basic psychological processes in the primary domain within which they affect daily life – misinformation on social media – this work will have implications for real-world practices aimed at reducing the impact of misinformation.”

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Thomas Massie: $100B for Ukraine Could Have Given an Extra $200M to Every Congressional District in U.S.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is blasting Republicans, Democrats, and President Joe Biden for their approving more than $100 billion in American taxpayer money for Ukraine this year.

As part of a year-end $1.7 trillion spending package, 18 Senate Republicans and nine House Republicans voted with Democrats to throw another $45 billion in taxpayer money at Ukraine — bringing the total amount of taxpayer money sent to Ukraine, authorized by Congress, to more than $110 billion.

Massie, in a Twitter post on Wednesday, noted that the more than $100 billion approved for Ukraine this year could have, instead, been spent on every United States congressional district.

“$100 billion to Ukraine. Let’s put that in perspective. That’s more than $200 million this year from each Congressional district,” Massie wrote. “What could your congressman have done for your district with $200 million? How long will the kids in your district be paying interest on this debt?”

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America’s ‘neediest’ cities ranked, from poverty to adequate plumbing

Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Los Angeles all rank among the nation’s 10 “neediest” cities, according to an analysis by the personal finance website WalletHub.

The report ranked 182 cities on 28 economic indicators, including child poverty, food insecurity and inadequate kitchens.

Detroit ranked as the neediest metropolis. One Detroit renter in five faced eviction this year, according to a report in The Detroit News.

Brownsville, Texas, ranked second. One-quarter of the city’s population lives in poverty, twice the national average, according to a recent account in 24/7 Wall St. 

Cleveland ranks third. Cleveland’s poverty rate is 29 percent, according to a report from WEWS-TV, making it the nation’s second-poorest large city, behind Detroit.

Ranking fourth through sixth were Gulfport, Miss.; Fresno, Calif.; and Laredo, Texas.

Philadelphia ranked seventh. The City of Brotherly Love has logged 500 homicides in 2022, according to WTXF-TV.

New Orleans ranked eighth. The city may have the nation’s highest murder rate, with more than 250 homicides this year, according to a report in nola.com.

Los Angeles, for all its wealth, came in at ninth on the list of needy cities. More than 40,000 Angelenos live on the streets, according to a recent report in The Nation.

The nation’s least needy city, by WalletHub’s calculus, is the D.C suburb of Columbia, Maryland, a tony bedroom community in Howard County.

Other cities at the desirable bottom end of the list include Bismarck, the North Dakota capital; Overland Park, the Kansas City suburb; Pearl City, part of greater Honolulu; South Burlington, Vt., home to Ben & Jerry’s; and Irvine, Calif., across the Orange Curtain from L.A.

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Feds funded study proving Thanos couldn’t snap his fingers while wearing Infinity Gauntlet

The U.S. federal government funded a study that determined the Marvel supervillain “Thanos” would not have been able to snap his fingers in the movie Avengers: Infinity War, a new report from Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., revealed last week.

The study, spearheaded by researchers at Georgia Tech, focused on the speed at which humans can snap their fingers, ultimately reporting a finger snap “produces the highest rotational accelerations observed in humans, even faster than the arm of a professional baseball pitcher.”

For the past few years, I’ve been fascinated with how we can snap our fingers,” Saad Bhamla, one of the researchers involved in the study, said in a press release. “It’s really an extraordinary physics puzzle right at our fingertips that hasn’t been investigated closely.”

Prior to conducting the study, Bhamla and his fellow researchers developed a “framework” to explain “ultrafast motions” in living beings. Seeing Thanos snap his fingers while wearing the Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers: Infinity War inspired the researchers to apply their framework to the massively popular cinematic franchise.

Despite deriving inspiration from Thanos, the study focused more broadly on the human finger snap, raising questions about why humans snap their fingers in the first place and whether other primates have the ability to do so.

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