20/20 Puff Piece

I watched the 20/20 piece on Lynn Meredith, the scamster tax protestor, and the only way to describe the show was superficial. While I have never been reticent about pointing out the left wing bias in most ABC News broadcasts, this was one story in which they took no side. However, when someone is advocating illegal things, it seems like responsible journalism would cry out for the 20/20 staff to make the case that this woman is a criminal. It seemed more like a Robin Leach episode of the Lives of the Rich and Famous as they showed Lynn Meredith's fleet of expensive cars and her recreated soda shop, complete with antique juke boxes. They didn't do much to show the down side to Meredith's criminal actions, other than have to wear an ankle bracelet as she walked along the beach. I can recall a time when the media made a point of illustrating the consequences of choosing a criminal path in life. Just mentioning that another tax protestor had died in prison wasn't as illustrative as showing some of the convicted tax cheats doing hard time working on a chain gang busting up rocks.

While it may sound like I am most upset with ABC for the way in which they told this story, that's not the case. The brain trust at the IRS has proved their incompetence once again by refusing to comment on the matter for the show. What imbeciles. As I have been explaining for decades, the tax protestor movement has grown as a direct result of IRS neglecting their responsibility to debunk the bogus claims being made, such as taxes being voluntary and money is not really income. In this country, silence means agreement. Whenever IRS refuses to comment on matters such as this, they are in effect endorsing the other side's case. They passed up another golden opportunity to clear up a lot of confusion in the minds of the American people as to the legality of the claims being made by Ms. Meredith and her fellow tax protestor scammers. IRS spokespersons could have very easily debunked every one of Meredith's arguments and followed up with real life stories of people who are in prison for following them.

It's long been very frustrating that I have to do the IRS's job for them in explaining how the tax protestor arguments are wrong and dangerous. In a way, it's almost as if IRS wants the tax protestor movement to grow because they sure aren't doing as much to stifle it as they could. Maybe it's part of some scheme to justify even more money and power when the number of flagrant tax violators grows much larger.

KMK
- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 1/19/2003 12:22:00 PM Send this post: