Monday, March 22, 2010

If it moves, TAX it

You know all those cameras mushrooming everywhere? States Look Beyond Borders to Collect Owed Taxes. NY Times:

But now states have greater access to data warehouses that help them better track taxes owed. Real estate transactions, federal data from the Internal Revenue Service, commercial license plates, traffic tickets, bids for government construction projects — all this information, newly digitized and dumped into a computer system, can help states find tax scofflaws.

“We’re sort of getting into ‘1984’ land here,” said Kenneth T. Zemsky, an accountant and partner at Ernst & Young. “A lot of the reason they went after athletes and entertainers is that they couldn’t find the other people. Now they’re able to get those people, too.”

The Times notes our President Barack Obama worked at least 30 states last year. That's one celebrity the IRS won't harass.

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