The commissioner of internal revenue has ordered his agency to delay collecting back taxes from Hurricane Katrina victims until after the Nov. 7 elections and the holiday season, saying he did so in part to avoid negative publicity.<\/p>\n
The commissioner, Mark W. Everson, who has close ties to the White House, said in an interview that postponing collections until after the midterm elections, along with postponing notices to people who failed to file tax returns, was a routine effort to avoid casting the Internal Revenue Service in a bad light. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very sensitive to political perceptions,\u201d Mr. Everson said Wednesday, adding that he regularly discussed with his senior staff members when to take actions and make announcements in light of whether they would annoy a powerful member of Congress or get lost in the flow of news.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nIn an interview, Mr. Everson acknowledged that he had \u201cprobably\u201d mentioned the elections to Ms. Tucker in their conversation. He said that in his mind the elections were part of a continuum that ran through the holidays, adding that it was a long-standing practice not to begin enforcement actions near Christmas because it often resulted in negative news and commentary about the I.R.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talk about the elections here every day,\u201d Mr. Everson said. \u201cWe deal with the Congress \u2014 is there going to be a new Finance Committee chairman, a new Ways and Means Committee chairman?\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cOf course, we think about whether our actions will play in the public space; we have to be seen as legitimate and independent, doing our job, and of course we would not institute a major enforcement action days before an election because it would be misinterpreted.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Or, of course, misinterpreted the other direction.<\/p>\n
Which reminds me of an exchange I watched last night between Jon Stewart of The Daily Show <\/em>and James Baker, about the timing of the release of Baker’s committee recommendations about Iraq. Baker was pleasantly adamant that it was being done after the elections so as not to politicize it. Stewart pointed out, rightly, that such an action politicizes it in the opposite way. And, yes, there’s a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t aspect to such a thing.<\/p>\nStill …<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(via Margie)<\/p>\n
<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I mean, sure, regulatory agencies and government bodies are always sensitive to politics. And, of course, they always tweak policy and timing of stuff around elections. That’s just common sense….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[59,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-2006","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":134118,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/10\/republicans-support-delaying-2020-elections-fearing-voter-fraud.html","url_meta":{"origin":9823,"position":0},"title":"Would Republicans support delaying the 2020 elections, fearing “voter fraud”?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 10-Aug-17 5:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's become almost cliche in modern times that conspiracy theorists on the side opposite the incumbent President speculate about their sworn foe delaying the elections so as to hold onto power and become a mad tyrant. I first heard that sort of rumbling back during the Clinton Era, where a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Poor Citizenship"","block_context":{"text":"Poor Citizenship","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/poor-citizenship"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/VoterFraud_intro1_Trumptweetsupdated_8001.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/VoterFraud_intro1_Trumptweetsupdated_8001.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/VoterFraud_intro1_Trumptweetsupdated_8001.gif?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/VoterFraud_intro1_Trumptweetsupdated_8001.gif?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":52018,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/01\/us-elections-show-me-the-money.html","url_meta":{"origin":9823,"position":1},"title":"US Elections: Show Me the Money","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 1-Aug-15 7:09pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As we start to watch the money rolling into the Presidential Election of 2016 ... the results are not encouraging except for the biggest-bucked of donors. 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But I found this...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2004"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2004","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2004"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5840,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/07\/12\/fiendishly_evil.html","url_meta":{"origin":9823,"position":5},"title":"Fiendishly evil plot, or horrifyingly necessary advance planning?","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Jul-04 6:27am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Dept. of Homeland Security is looking at what legal steps would need to be taken to allow the federal government to delay the November elections in case of a...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2004"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2004","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2004"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9823\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}