Bureau of Labor Assessments

      The IRS can file returns for and assess tax against individuals who do not file returns.  If the IRS cannot find any information on the individual, they can simply invent an income using the Bureau of Labor Statistics averages.  A case on this issue is Angela Palmer v. United States Internal Revenue Service. et. al., 116 F.3d. 1309 (9th Cir. July 2, 1997).  The Palmers lost on the issues they raised but the court did make some observations regarding their case that raise important issues.  The court noted:  "The government offered no explanation for its choice of national medial household income statistics to reconstruct the Palmer's income.  Nor did it offer evidence suggesting that the statistics represented a rational method for approximating the correct amount.  Attributing median national income statistics to other Palmers was not a rational method for reconstructing their income."  

      However the court did not consider the IRS' irrationality because the Palmers did not raise the issue timely.  So, the Palmers lost, but the important question of the rationality of the IRS method remains to b determined.

America is Going Backwards

      Our country is deteriorating both physically and socially.  We now lead the industrialized nations in drug abuse and crime.  Washington DC is virtually bankrupt.  Nearly every major American City is in the same situation. Even the airports are run down.  Whole areas of the Bronx and South Dallas and elsewhere are suffering from a horrible urban blight.  In San Francisco, the homeless roam the streets in their cars even when they hold regular jobs.  Crack wars and crime ravage Houston, Washington and Los Angeles. Five New Yorkers are murdered a day but the murder rate is even higher in at least ten other American cities.  Currently the United States sports the highest prison population in the world. We have over a million prisoners in this country.    Americans increasingly live in fear.  Security cops are the fastest growing profession. 

      In America, about 20 percent of the population is poor.  In West Germany, 5 percent is poor, in Switzerland, 8 percent is poor and 12 percent of the British population is poor.  The total net income of the 2.5 million richest Americans is about equal to the income of the bottom 100 million. 

      As a result, slums are popping up. The middle-class is shrinking.  The poor are growing poorer and the rich are growing richer.  The murder rate for young men in US cities is from 4 to 70 times greater than it is in Bangladesh. Voter turnout in elections in the United States is the lowest of all Western democracies.  Non voters outnumber voters by two to one.   The education system is a disaster.  Recent studies have shown that scientific knowledge of high school students is the lowest of all the industrialized countries. Americans are actually more likely to be illiterate than Eastern Europeans.

      Here are some more astounding statistics: Infant mortality is at 10 per 1000, which is twice that of Japan.  Vaccinations in the US average at 40% lower than the rest of the industrialized world.  The rate of teenage pregnancies is 10 times higher that in Japan.  We have increasingly fragmented and dysfunctional families.

      Meanwhile, our industry is leaving.  "Made in USA” will soon be an obsolete expression.  The quality of US made goods is falling and so is our technical knowledge.  Toyota recently discovered that American factories were turning out 100 times more faulty parts than Japanese companies. American products now account for only 10% of the world marketplace.  Our technological dominance is over.  More and more products now come from overseas and we are losing out in the battle for the best trained work force.

      Our greatest problems are industrial decline and social polarization coupled with a nightmarish deficit.  America, the world's greatest lending nation before the 1970s has become currently the world's largest debtor nation.  Because of the high rate of taxation on the middle class, Americans have stopped saving and they are plunging into an abyss of consumer debt.  Each year another $150 billion is added to the mountain of debt.  Each year the debt increases and the gap widens in the class structure of the United States as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  The IRS continues to use its unbridled power to harass, intimidate, and subjugate the middle class.  The situation will continue until the people wake up and demand change.