Pretty stupid. And Obama is an AMERICAN CITIZEN unlike those whose parents came here illegally to give birth
--- In Politics_CurrentEvents_Group@yahoogroups.com, Carl Spitzer <cwsiv@...> wrote:
>
> Makes since the Kenyan wants the IRS to enforce socialized medicine, so
> now the shoe is on the other foot and the IRS is being used as a pro
> life entity.
> CWSIV
>
> http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/gop-bill-irs-abortion-audits
>
> Under a GOP-backed bill expected to sail through the House of
> Representatives, the Internal Revenue Service would be forced to police how
> Americans have paid for their abortions. To ensure that taxpayers complied
> with the law, IRS agents would have to investigate whether certain
> terminated pregnancies were the result of rape or incest. And one tax expert
> says that the measure could even lead to questions on tax forms: Have you
> had an abortion? Did you keep your receipt?
>
> In testimony to a House taxation subcommittee on Wednesday, Thomas Barthold,
> the chief of staff of the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee, confirmed that
> one consequence of the Republicans' "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act"
> would be to turn IRS agents into abortion copsâ€"that is, during an audit,
> they'd have to detemine, from evidence provided by the taxpayer, whether any
> tax benefit had been inappropriately used to pay for an abortion.
>
>
> The proposed law, also known as H.R. 3, extends the reach of the Hyde
> Amendmentâ€"which bans federal funding for abortion except in cases of rape,
> incest, or when the life of the mother is at stakeâ€"into many parts of the
> federal tax code. In some cases, the law would forbid using tax
> benefitsâ€"like credits or deductionsâ€"to pay for abortions or health insurance
> that covers abortion. If an American who used such a benefit were to be
> audited, Barthold said, the burden of proof would lie with the taxpayer to
> provide documentation, for example, that her abortion fell under the
> rape/incest/life-of-the-mother exception, or that the health insurance she
> had purchased did not cover abortions.
> "Were this to become law, people could end up in an audit, the subject of
> which could be abortion, rape, and incest," says Christopher Bergin, the
> head of Tax Analysts, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit tax policy group. "If
> you pass the law like this, the IRS would be required to enforce it."
>
> The proposal, which House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has declared a top
> priority of the new Republican Congress, has 221 cosponsors and is expected
> to pass the House easily. The bill caused controversy and sparked a national
> protest campaign in January after Mother Jones reported that it would limit
> the Hyde Amendment's rape exception to cases of "forcible rape." Experts
> told Mother Jones that move could prevent Medicaid from paying for abortions
> in many rape cases, including statutory rapes. Despite the presence of many
> other controversial provisions, the bill regained momentum after its
> sponsors promised to strip the "forcible rape" language. But during
> Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) highlighted the IRS
> enforcement issue, which has until now flown under the radar. He asked:
>
> Would a woman have to certify that the Health Savings Account funds she
> spent on birth control pills or for a doctor's visit weren't used to pay for
> an abortion? If a woman were audited, would IRS agents be at her house
> demanding court documents or affidavits proving that her pregnancy was the
> result of rape or incest?
>
> Barthold replied that the taxpayer would have to prove that she had complied
> with all applicable abortion laws. Under standard audit procedure, a woman
> would have to provide evidence to corroborate facts about abortions, rapes,
> and cases of incest, says Marcus Owens, an accountant and former longtime
> IRS official. If a taxpayer received a deduction or tax credit for abortion
> costs related to a case of rape or incest, or because her life was
> endangered, then "on audit [she] would have to demonstrate or prove, ideally
> by contemporaneous written documentation, that it was incest, or rape, or
> [her] life was in danger," Owens says. "It would be fairly intrusive for the
> woman."
>
> Not everyone has "contemporaneous written documentation" that a pregnancy
> was the result of rape or incest. And, as Owens notes, adults sometimes pay
> for abortions for their children. If H.R. 3 becomes law, parents could face
> IRS questions about whether they spent pre-tax money from health savings
> accounts on abortions for their kids. "It would seem there would have to be
> a question about that [in an audit] and maybe even a question on the tax
> return," Owens says.
>
> The bill contains no instructions for how the IRS should enforce it. The
> wording of the legislation is so vague that the Joint Tax Committee offered
> several different interpretations of which parts of the tax code it might
> actually affect. But the law will unquestionably affect some portion of the
> tax codeâ€"an entire section of the bill is titled "Prohibition on Tax
> Benefits Relating to Abortion." (A spokesman for New Jersey GOP Rep. Chris
> Smith, the main author of the bill, did not respond to a request for
> comment. A spokesman for the IRS said the agency does not comment on pending
> legislation.)
>
> "The Internal Revenue Service has no business interfering with a woman's
> right to a safe, legal, constitutionally-protected medical procedure,"
> Thompson tells Mother Jones. "Private health care decisions belong to a
> woman, her family, and her doctorâ€"not a government auditor."
>
> Most IRS agents would likely agree, Owens says: "I don't think [IRS agents]
> enjoy prying around into those sorts of private matters." Another IRS
> veteran tells Mother Jones he doesn't believe his ex-colleagues would want
> to enforce such a law. "You can't ask people to go out and ask some woman
> about what the circumstances are surrounding her abortion. They just won't
> do it."
>
> UPDATE: NARAL Pro-Choice America, one of the major groups supporting
> abortion rights, has issued a statement responding to this story:
>
> "This bill gets more outrageous and insulting by the day. Not only would a
> woman have to describe her sexual assault to the police, but she could then
> be forced to relive that horrifying experience with an agent from the IRS,"
> said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. "The 221 members
> of Congress who signed their names to this egregious bill must explain to
> their constituents why they want to give the IRS authority to audit rape
> survivors."
>
> It's hard to know exactly what form "describ[ing] her sexual assault to
> the... IRS" would take, since this bill hasn't become law. But as I note in
> the story, "contemporaneous written documentation" is a general standard for
> the agency, so it's likely that, barring a change to the law, a woman would
> need to provide such documentation to the IRS during an audit. But what
> would meet the standard? A police report? Trial records? A doctor's note?
> Again, it's hard to predict.
>
> UPDATE 2: In comments, HyperTyler asks whether this means the GOP is
> abandoning HIPAA, the law that protects privacy of health records. Answer:
> not really. The law allows law enforcement agents to obtain such records by
> submitting a written request. IRS agents conducting an audit almost
> certainly qualify as law enforcement agents in this context.
>
> UPDATE 3: Kevin Drum has more on this.
>
> Nick Baumann covers national politics and civil liberties issues for Mother
> Jones' DC Bureau. For more of his stories, click here. You can also follow
> him on Twitter and Facebook. Email tips and insights to nbaumann [at]
> motherjones [dot] com. Get Nick Baumann's RSS feed.
>
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