Forgive me for asking but, wouldn't it be more cost effective if they started with the congress critters - and obama's cabinet - and worked they way out of D.C.?

He's gonna need that extra muscle if he's going to go after all his recalcitrant friends and enemies. SO why is this a surprise/

Political enemies will be targeted as during the Clinton years.

Does this mean he'll be going after Hollywood/Entertainer's and all of their big tax breaks?????

Should be an easy job. Just get a list of all the contributors to the DNC and Obama. We'll be swimming in money then.

Is there ANY chance that the Anti-Obama Crowd (AOC) will give more than 30 seconds to see how this plays out? It seems like every day there's another bit of the overall puzzle revealed about where all this is going, yet the AOC refuses to do anything other than look at the moment.

"Is there ANY chance that the Anti-Obama Crowd (AOC) will give more than 30 seconds to see how this plays out?"

The thing is, it only takes about ten seconds to see how it's going to go. For example, an increase in tax enforcement budget means more people enforcing tax laws, which means more pressure on those folks to justify their paychecks.

This means they're going to end up stomping all over the easy tax cases ("sorry, Mr. Smith, but since you don't have a lawyer who can help you out, you can't deduct your mileage on your car, or the mortgage on your home office, you owe us a couple of thousand bucks") and taking a pass on the hard ones ("we'd like to go after these rich guys who deducted the rent on their mistresses' apartments, but they're all big Democrat campaign donors and have accounting firms to obscure their returns, so we're not going to do anything").

Something you obviously don't know is that a few years ago, the IRS took a softer line on enforcement, with the basic rule being "try to be nice to the taxpayers while getting money from them." It worked great, and tax receipts per capita rose dramatically while decreasing the number of people in enforcement.

The Obama folks basically want to reverse this policy.

Sorry, I don't think that 10 seconds is all it takes to understand the full picture. Something YOU obviously don't know (or aren't thinking about) is the combination this week of discussion of corporate tax haven enforcement + increase in IRS enforcement. I find it hard to believe the two aren't related.

But honestly, none of that matters, right? It's Obama so he can do no right, and if he does, he's still Obama, which makes him inherently wrong, right?

Jake - "But honestly, none of that matters, right? It's Obama so he can do no right, and if he does, he's still Obama, which makes him inherently wrong, right?

No, what it means is after watching barack hussein obama keep a tax cheat at Treasury, flip-flop on lobbyists in the admin, flip-flop and then flip again on the spanish inquisition of Bush officials, flip-flop on "no earmarks" and a long list of piss-poor vetting of people nominated for various position we are, lets say... suspicious.

Jake,

There's obviously no chance the On-Their-Knees-Fellating-Obama Crowd (OTKFOC) will ever be able to goof on their new Messiah. Or maybe you believe paying taxes is for corporations and people who work in the private sector rather than Democrats who work in the public sector and are chosen for an Obama cabinet post?

Lighten up, Francis.

If, for one moment, I thought that simplifying the tax code or increasing enforcement would eliminate the politicization of taxes I'd be all for it. But that's never going to happen. You know, I know it, everybody at some level knows it. Politicians will continue to amend the tax code to benefit their supporters and we'll be right back to square one in less than a decade.

Our tax code is written much like what is called "spaghetti code" in programming. Every rule has an effect on another rule which has an effect on another rule, etc. And if half a dozen IRS "experts" can't even do one person's taxes and come to the same number how can we expect they understand the tax code enough not to make it worse or end up with unintended consequences?

The tax code must be scrapped and completely rewritten or replaced with something else; be it the Flat tax, the Fair Tax or some other manner of taxation.

@Oyster - sing it, brother!

@Barron - Idiotic calls of Messiah aside, your Right wing brainwashing ish showing... that corporations should be allowed to run rampant, doing whatever they please because somehow that's the only way "free market" can work is ludicrous.

I believe we ALL should be doing our part to pay taxes. Corporations, small businesses, individuals, all of us. I also don't believe that tax havens and other questionable corporate behavior is acceptable. Personally, I have declined crazy antics in my own taxes when my CPA offers them. Even though they may be technically legal, I don't feel comfortable entering a gray area simply to save a few bucks. When corporations are entering that gray area (or perhaps blowing right past it), they're hurting all of us in the long run.

I know that free markets and zero taxes and zero government (and historical military power, over arching spying on citizens, and unfettered torture and disappearing programs) are hallmarks of the current GOP platform, but personally I'm fine with paying taxes, so long as they're fair, deliver positive services, and are applied equally (in principle, not in specifics) to individuals and corporations.

Call me a loony leftie (Willie, that's your queue!), call me a communist, whatever. I'm not, and it used to be that Republicans weren't trying to claim that unfettered free markets, void of any corporate checks and balances was a cornerstone of the party.

Oyster is a sister, Jake.

As someone who loves progressive taxation, I find it pretty amusing that most parts of the United States of Hating the Government have higher corporate tax rates than most provinces in Soviet Canuckistan. Doesn't really fit the caricature. How the hell did that happen?

Hating the government and wanting a smaller one are two different things, Hyperbolist.