IRS Blistered by Internal Watchdog for Lax Protections of Taxpayer Data After Criminal Leak

The IRS failed to revoke access to sensitive tax systems from contractors who failed background checks and doesn’t have protections for some of those systems to prevent unauthorized removal of taxpayer data, the agency’s chief watchdog warns in a stinging rebuke that comes on the heels of a devastating criminal leak of tax records.

“The fact remains that for some sensitive systems, the IRS does not have adequate controls to detect or prevent the unauthorized removal of data by users,” the Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) concluded in a report this month.

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Congress Reaches Deal to Increase Child Tax Credit, Negotiate Tax Treaty with Taiwan

Family Learning

Congressional negotiators from the Senate and House of Representatives announced a deal on Tuesday to increase the child tax credit and negotiate a new bilateral tax treaty with Taiwan, among other matters.

The child tax credit was first enacted in 1997 to provide parents with greater funds to care for children under the age of 17 and was expanded in 2021 under the American Rescue Plan Act, though that expansion expired in 2022 and has not been reauthorized. The new deal — known as the “The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024” — reached between Democrats and Republicans in Congress will change the way the tax credit is calculated, increase the credit every year until 2025 and index it to inflation, according to a technical summary of the plan published by the House Ways and Means Committee.

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New Legislation Would Revoke Tax-Exempt Status of Nonprofits Funding Hamas, Other Terrorists

Proposed new legislation would revoke the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit organization that is providing material support for terrorist groups.

The bipartisan bill, introduced by U.S. Rep. David Kustoff, R-Tenn., and U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., comes out of the House Ways and Means Committee, which unanimously approved the legislation last week.

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Impeachment Inquiry Sharpens Focus on Millions in Loans to Biden Family

There are red flags aplenty: Loan repayments between Joe Biden and his brother; millions in promissory notes between Hunter Biden and a Democrat-donating Hollywood lawyer; and debt deals from Ukraine to China. 

As the House impeachment inquiry heats up, investigators are increasingly focused on a trail of red ink that has become a recurring theme in evidence chronicling the first family’s finances.

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Commentary: Oh Great, Another ‘Debt Commission’

Recognizing the precarious plight of the nation’s fiscal situation, newly installed House Speaker Mike Johnson has called for a bi-partisan commission to study the nation’s debt. Everyone involved in federal fiscal policy for a length of time surely responded with some variation on, “Good grief, Charlie Brown.” Congress has formed and ignored innumerable such groups over many decades.

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Committee Docs Shed Light on Hunter Biden’s Escort Payments, Potential Mann Act Violations

The documents released by the House Ways and Means Committee last week shed new light on Hunter Biden’s reported interactions with escorts, including his claiming a tax deduction for payments to the women as business expenses. The documents also disclose documentation of investigators considering Mann Act charges.

Contained in the highly redacted documents the House Ways and Means Committee released last Wednesday are an interview with an “escort” identified as Gulnora and with Hunter Biden’s tax accountant who helped him prepare his tax returns for 2017 and 2018.

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Congress to Release New Evidence, Testimony in Biden Case to Back Up IRS Whistleblowers

The chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee tells Just the News he plans to soon make public new testimony that corroborates IRS whistleblowers’ accounts of interference in the Hunter Biden probe and new evidence to support the nascent impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. 

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said Thursday his panel will hold a vote to make the new information available, including testimonies from two IRS agents who back the accounts of whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler about slow-walking and interference in the Hunter Biden tax case.

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‘Nothing But Retaliation:’ IRS Agent Details Adverse Career Impact After Blowing Whistle on Biden

After helping to recover billions in taxpayer funds from tax cheats, IRS agent Gary Shapley was rising in stature and responsibility. He was in line for a big promotion and his plans for a new project to pursue tax evasion around the globe were on the fast tracks.

But all that, he says, came crashing down after he and a fellow agent blew the whistle last October on what they saw as political tampering from the DOJ in a tax evasion case against first son Hunter Biden.

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IRS Whistleblower Attorneys Hit Back at Hunter Biden Attorney over Leaking Accusations

IRS Whistleblower Gary Shapley’s legal team hit back on Friday against accusations from Hunter Biden’s attorney suggesting he had claimed to be a whistleblower to escape punishment over his own alleged misconduct. Biden attorney Abbe Lowell on Friday wrote to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, suggesting Shapley and a second unnamed IRS agent of blowing the whistle “in an attempt to evade their own misconduct,” Axios reported. The “timing of the agents’ leaks and your subsequent decision to release their statements do not seem innocent.”

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IRS Whistleblower Provides Congress Origins of Biden Probe, Evidence of Political Interference

A decorated IRS agent provided Congress six hours of testimony and seven critical documents Friday that gave lawmakers insights into the origins of the Hunter Biden criminal tax probe and evidence of political interference inside the Justice Department dating to the 2020 election.

Gary Shapley, an IRS supervisory criminal investigator granted whistleblower status, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, fielding questions from staff from Democrat and Republican lawmakers, his legal team announced.

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IRS Leaked Thousands of Americans’ Tax Filings; Congress Demands Answers

The new head of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee blasted the Biden administration for giving few answers after thousands of taxpayer files were leaked to an outside group.

House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., sent a letter to Russel George, the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration, raising concerns about the leak of “confidential tax information” and the lack of accountability over that leak.

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U.S. House Committee Releases Trump’s Tax Returns

The House Ways and Means Committee that is controlled by Democrats released six years of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns on Friday.

The New York Post reported the returns cover the years 2015 to 2020. The Trumps reported positive income of $24.3 million in 2018 and $4.4 million in 2019 and had negative income in four of the six years in which tax returns were released.

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