auditcongress.com

Audit Congress has been making some real progress, and we are a now a Virginia Non Stock corporation and have submitted to the IRS for 501(c)3 not-for-profit, charitable status.  We can accept donations in Virginia and Colorado, and are seeking support nationwide, but we're not asking for a donation, yet.  For those of you who haven't singed our petition yet, please do so today!

We would like to tell you about an important initiative from the White House.  The Obama Administration is seeking ideas to improve open government.  What timing:  We have an idea!  Here's the link to the White House site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/

The process involves collecting, evaluating, and discussing ideas.  We've submitted Auditing Congress (and other high officials) as a means to improve trust and confidence in our elected and appointed officials.  Here is the idea posted to the discussion site: http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/3982-4049

This idea has been posted for only a few days, but is receiving a 95% positive response, and is already one of the highest rated ideas.  We need your help.

Please go here http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/3982-4049 and vote for this idea.  Help the White House understand the simplicity, attractiveness, and openness of this concept.  Let them know that clear, specific steps in the right direction are the way to improve government.  Let your voice be heard today.

Thanks for your moral support, and for taking a few minutes to make a difference for our country.  Feel free to share this with your friends.  We can make a difference.

Peter Langlois
Dan Murphy

        

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is likely to soon be confirmed as the new Secretary of Health and Human Services despite revealing that she had underpaid her taxes by roughly $7,000.00  It is unfortunate that she is also another in a long line of public officials who seem to have trouble paying their appropriate taxes on time.

A major difference this time is that Kathleen Sebelius had her CPA review her tax returns for 2005, 2006, and 2007, and found that she hadn't properly paid her taxes.   In other words, she had herself voluntarily audited, which is precisely the idea what we are trying to put into place here at Audit Congress.   Audits can help ensure compliance.

She voluntarily submitted to the audit, caught the discrepancies, paid the difference (plus interest) to the IRS, and then revealed all this to the committee which subsequently approved her nomination to the post.   This action illustrates the real world viability of requiring tax audits for Congressmen and other high government officials: those who want to serve in government cleaning up their tax act, and keeping it clean.

We applaud, and encourage a broad positive recognition for the open and appropriate acts of Kathleen Sebelius!  This was the right thing to do, and we heartily support her audit as an example to be followed by others.

We doubt that anyone would have submitted to such an audit and paid up on their taxes were they not being put under a microscope at Congressional approval hearings.  If the CPA who prepared the previous years' tax returns was the same CPA who conducted the audit, we hope she got a rebate for earlier services.   Who knows, the article doesn't say.

We know the nature of some of the items which were "adjusted", including 3 out of 49 charitable and business deductions which were improperly documented and a mortgage interest deduction which was improperly applied.   These adjustments were disclosed in a news article and do not appear to be deliberate attempts to evade taxes.  Rather they illustrate how tough it can be to fully comply with the tax code regardless of intent.   Perhaps regular tax audits will bring home to Congress the unnecessary burden placed upon everyday Americans by the convoluted tax code they themselves have put into place.   In Secretary Sebelius’ home state of Kansas, Wayne Godsey, KMBC President And General Manager penned an editorial today on this subject.  Here is the heart of the editorial:

    "Kan. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has become another in a long line of Cabinet nominees to admit underpaying income taxes. Assuming the errors were unintentional, as she claims, it raises the question of whether our tax code is just too complicated. Highly educated people have to hire accountants to prepare their returns.

The tax code was intended to raise money to finance the functions of government. But it has become a way for government to encourage or penalize actions of businesses and individuals. With thousands of provisions for every imaginable purpose, the code has become so complicated that even IRS experts get things wrong."

Simplifying the tax code is not the focus of Audit Congress. We intend to help Americans to implement audits at the highest levels of the Federal government. However it wouldn't hurt our feelings if congressional audits helped build a congressional consensus for simplifying the tax code.

We congratulate the Secretary nominee of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, and applaud her for undergoing a voluntary audit. We would feel better, however, if in the future Secretary Sebelius was audited every year, as she will be responsible for one of the highest jobs in the government. And we would feel better still if all Congress and high officials were audited every year.

Pete Langlois and Dan Murphy

        

The US Congress’s moral authority to lead in times of crisis is undermined by the perception that many Congressmen are not paying their taxes. The fact that Congress is responsible for shaping our tax system just makes it worse. The Constitution of the United States gives Congress the power to tax.  From Section 8 of the Constitution: 

        "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,........." 

The Constitution gives Congress many other powers in addition to the power to "lay and collect" taxes, but this power is one that is directly felt by almost every American virtually every day of their life. It is for many a heavy burden, made heavier by the realization that those who are requiring them to pay such taxes may not be paying their own tax obligations.  

Here in the U.S., we are not supposed to have different classes of citizens. Those who make our laws are supposed to be subject to them in the same way as any ordinary citizen. It is true that there are benefits and perks Congress has voted to themselves over the years, however not complying with the law is different. As far as we are aware, Congressmen are subject to the same tax filing and payment requirements as any other citizen.

The problem of course is that, as has been recently reported, some in Congress have been less diligent in paying their taxes than ordinary Americans expect. That is why we are calling for annual tax audits for Congressmen and other High Government officials.

There is a new urgency to this matter, however. The current administration is proposing a record increase in existing and new taxes, and these new taxes will affect Americans at all income levels. Congress appears poised to approve the President's plans. We are also in the midst of the deepest economic downturn in 20 years.  (This comparison is debatable, but there is no question that it has been many years since we have experienced such a severe recession.)  In times such as these, it is crucial for the health of our Republic for the citizens to retain faith and confidence in the leadership of our great nation. Not only is there a need for the citizens to feel that our leadership has the talents, skills and willingness to lead us through tough times, citizens need to feel that their leadership has the moral authority to lead.

The US Congress’s moral authority to lead in this time of crisis is severely undermined by the perception that many Congressmen are not paying their taxes.

We believe that, at this crucial time, Congress should take steps to restore citizen's faith in their government. One immediate step they can take is to institute an annual tax audit for their membership, and for other high government officials.

Pete Langlois and Dan Murphy

        

While not called out explicitly in the Constitution, the "right to privacy" is a fairly well understood, and often debated construct.  And while not specifically delineated as a "right", the framers of the Constitution understood that their ability to enumerate every right was not only limited, but that attempting to enumerate all rights was inadvisable.  As such, and seeing they needed to get the job done of packaging together a set of assurances that the Federal government would not become another tyrant like the King of England, they concluded the Bill of Rights with two elegant and far reaching declarations.  The Ninth Amendment declares:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

And the tenth "piles on":

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Clearly we have rights and powers not enumerated. The question of privacy as a right to be explicitly protected in the context of the Tax Audits of High Officials, is explored in this essay.

There is a reasonable concern that requiring high government officials to undergo tax audits will discourage some good persons who are interested in public service (but who may jealously guard their privacy) from engaging in public service. They may decline to serve if it means the loss of their privacy and the disclosure of their personal business to the public. Restoring tax accountability should not also include the loss of talented individuals willing to serve their county.
 
This valid concern is precisely why the Audit Congress petition calls for a summary disclosure of the result of tax audits.  The idea of a complete 1040 form with all details being involuntarily disclosed to the public, puts into the public eye a great deal of information which does not advance the idea of increasing trust and transparency in government.  An individual's charitable contributions, or the specific dividends paid from their investments does not move forward the trust and transparency question.  It could however, support a number of distractions, a number of partisan or philosophically motivated attacks based upon how an individual chooses to invest or to whom they give charitable donations.  Those issues, while perhaps having merit in their own right, are not central to determining that a person has paid their taxes.

While privacy is a concern in terms of making holding an office more onerous than it is worth, it is not privacy per se that is of primary concern in the publication of the summary findings of annual tax audits.  It is the notion of achieving the desired effect, which is to restore a measure of trust in our government.  Ideally this can be done with a minimum of intrusion into other issues which are beyond the scope of this initiative.  There is no need, and no desired outcome to be served by probing into the "hows" and "whys" of the tax returns of our officials.  Compliance only is the issue to be served in the present discussion.

This brings to light the important issue of confidentiality and protection of records at the federal level. The various departments, agencies, committees, etc. of our federal government have an uneven track record in keeping confidential information confidential.  The problem can be broken into two pieces:  First, the volitional and intentional “leaking” by employees or contractors of the federal government. Second is unintended exposure or theft due to shortcomings in various forms of electronic or physical security.  The bottom line is that citizens who serve in high office do not sacrifice all of their privacy rights when they choose to serve their county.  Adequate protections must be constructed to ensure that privileged and confidential information disclosed in a government official’s tax audit does not later appear on the front page of a newspaper.
 
A directly related issue is record retention methods and policies related to tax audits. If the financial records of a Senator (for example) are pulled together for the purpose of completing a tax compliance audit, what parts of those records remain after the audit is completed as evidence that the audit was conducted to a sufficient standard of effect?  Should the record retention policies be any different than what are applied to any other citizen who must undergo a tax audit?  Who should those maintain those records, for what time period, and for which legal purposes should they be opened or disclosed?

This discussion does not address specifically what information should be disclosed in a "summary" finding of a tax audit.  Protecting the privacy of information not disclosed is a separate issue from deciding what information should be disclosed. What "summary" information should be disclosed after government officials undergo tax audits is the subject of a future essay.

These are serious and significant issues which need to be resolved as a policy to audit Congress and other officials for tax compliance is created.  Audit Congress is confident that they can be resolved, and while not advocating a specific law or policy, does advocate that laws and be enacted to serve the people in the arena of tax compliance.  Suffice to say, there are real issues regarding privacy, security, and disclosure associated with conducting tax audits, including the important issue of what should be disclosed as the result of the audit.  These are precisely the topics that must be probed in depth by those who will craft legislation addressing addressing tax trust and transparency.

Peter Langlois

        

The business of Government may be actually more like a business than we commonly consider. Perhaps it should be more so.  The typical background and character checks that come with bringing a new senior executive to a major corporation are an excellent idea.  When a board of directors puts out an executive search, the skills and qualifications of the applicant are alone insufficient to instill confidence.  An exhaustive background check is part of what any board would do to ensure that the interest of stockholders is protected.  

We should expect no less of our leaders.  We are the "board of directors" for this thing we call a government, and we are responsible for managing our government so that the interests of our "stockholders" are protected.

The public servants who compete for the honor of doing the will of the people are our employees.  Their failure to discharge their personal tax obligations is the moral equivalent of an employee with financial responsibilities who fails to correctly balance the till at the end of the day.  At some point, as a manager, the question of whether the errors are a result of sloppy work or whether this is pilfering is simply not important.  They have to go.

In a July 2007 survey, 6FigureJobs.com  asked its 500,000+ executive and senior-level members if they thought taking a certified voluntary background check would make them a more marketable candidate. The survey revealed that eleven percent (11%) of respondents have already taken a voluntary background check. This is up four percent from the same survey conducted in June 2006, where only seven percent (7%) admitted to taking one. The survey results showed that the majority of respondents (49%) felt that a background check would make them more marketable and would consider taking one. This is a five percent increase compared to last year's results.

We’re not just talking about a good job here.  We’re talking about a public trust.

We have seen enough evidence of financial impropriety among members of our government to rightfully suspect that it is neither uncommon nor insignificant.  As stewards of our republic, we are well served to demand a bit more financial due diligence from those to whom we will entrust billions or even trillions of our dollars.

If we do not drive a harder bargain with our employees, we deserve to go on questioning both the performance of our employees and our own judgment.  Let’s get busy raising the bar, and measuring their performance.  They are not justified to take offense at our questioning their integrity.  It’s nothing personal, this is business.


Pete Langlois

        

Last week was the second full week the AuditCongress.com web site has been up, and what a week it was!  We have been very fortunate to have attracted interest in what we are trying to do, and are grateful for all the support we have received. We noticed a significant spike in traffic and in petition signatures after Professor Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame kindly mentioned us on Monday.  After that, traffic has been steadily higher, with other bloggers and sites linking to us either because of the Instapundit mention, or because they came here via another route.

To have attracted such interest in such a short amount of time tells us that many, many people are interested in finding some way to help restore trust in our government.

Thank you one and all!

The number one thing everyone can do to continue to help and support moving to our goal is to continue to spread the word about AuditCongress.com, and what we are trying to do. When people know about us and what we’d like to accomplish, they’re usually glad to sign the AuditCongess.com petition.

Also, as we move forward, we will need all of the help and support that we can get at a local level! In the coming weeks, we fully intend to broaden our campaign in several ways.  We are initiating a letter writing campaign to Public Officials, including Congressmen.  If you are interested in helping with this you can e-mail us here: Auditor@AuditCongress.com .

We will be taking the call for Congressional audits to the state grassroots level. For this, we will be looking for volunteers from across the country, to write and call their own state’s Congressmen, and ask them to support the AuditCongress.com petition. We will be asking political parties to ask their candidates and incumbents to take the pledge supporting tax transparency, and for their incumbent officials to promote the audit of high Government officials.  We will be looking for support for this effort as well.  In politics, when one person speaks, they are sometimes "hard to hear", but when a group speaks clearly and with one voice,  politicians will take notice!

We will also ask for volunteers to be local activists for congressional audits. We will look for them to organize locally, and work to generate local support for our goals.   We will be publishing pages for every Congressman, and look to local volunteers to help keep these up to date. We hope that this way it will be easy for anyone to see who has is supporting the AuditCongress.com intitiative. All volunteers will be asked to be strictly non-partisan on this issue, as this is not a partisan issue, and to understand that being non-partisan is key to further widespread support for our cause.

Again, if you are interested in becoming an AuditCongress volunteer and would like to further the cause of having high officials audited annually by the IRS, please contact us privately by emailing us at: Auditor@AuditCongress.com

Again, our sincere thanks to everyone for their support!

"The Auditor"

Pete Langlois and Dan Murphy

        

Pete's excellent post earlier expanded on some of the thought process behind the AuditCongress.com petition, and begins with a quote from James Madison, one of our Founding Fathers. Many have forgotten, or never learned in the first place the huge influence he had in the formative days of our Republic. Indeed his influence is still powerful today.

Madison writes in the Federalist Papers  (made available on the web by the Constitution Society, a very nice resource) about the idea of balancing the power of the branches of the Federal Government (The Federalist #51). The paper is titled "The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments". His thoughts are relevant today:

But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

Madison rightly assumes that, human nature being what it is, we will need to guard against the abuses of government as all free people before us have had to do. Part of the solution he proposed was balancing each branch, each "Department" of the government against the others. He states the rest below:

 
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

In other words, we should take extra precautions, such as balancing the powers of the branches of the government, in order to ensure that too much power does not accumulate in any one individual or branch or government.  It's primarily the people who have to keep the government in line, but it's up to all Americans to act when more is needed.

Here on this blog we are calling for another auxilliary precaution: Let's have our Congressmen and other high government officials audited by the IRS! Every year! 

Make your voice heard today; sign the AduitCongress.com petition today by clicking here:  AuditCongress.com Petition

Dan Murphy

        

Underwhelmed at the Libercontrarian is back up posting again, and was kind enough to link to us. He's wading right back into the fray, targeting the stimulus bill and a particular Congressman being investigated yet again. Underwhelmed is obviously on board with the idea of auditing Congress:

This is EXACTLY what Murphy (Editor's note: AuditCongress.com is a joint effort of Peter Langlois and Dan Murphy) is playing at with AuditCongress.com - placing The Untouchables into the Touch Zone. We The People should be able to view the year-by-year tax returns of our supposed betters, if for no other reason than to force them to prove that their financial behavior is beyond reproach.

After all, they expect (and will have investigators demand) the same from us - if you don't think so, just try not paying your taxes for a couple of years and see what happens to you.

I am frankly tired of Congressmen and Senators getting caught with tens of thousands of dollars in their freezers or receiving free houses from oil companies. Aren't you tired of voting for them?

Well, yes I am tired of voting for them.  It would be nice to find out if they’ve paid their taxes before we have to vote for them, instead of afterwards. Let’s audit Congress, every year!

Want to sign the AuditCongress.com Petition now?    Click her to sign petition!

Dan Murphy

        

The request that high government officials undergo an annual IRS audit seems to be a reasonable request, and most people I’ve discussed it with think it’s a good idea. We need some minimum oversight on those with access to almost unlimited money and power. Recent history shows that there’s dirt under the Congressional rug, and we just need to pull up the corner and look to find it.

Several times I’ve heard the objection that an annual IRS audit, with the subsequent public availability of a summary of the results, is an invasion of our government official’s privacy. This position has it that government officials have the right to the presumption of innocence, that we shouldn’t audit them unless we have probable cause.

This argument should be easily dealt with, as in our society rights are often sacrificed in favor of a Greater Public Good. In this case, the Greater Public Good is restoring some of the basic trust in our Government. That trust has been lost over many years as trusted public officials have been revealed to have been cheating on their tax obligations, in addition to other types of cheating and dishonesty. The Greater Public Good here also involves ensuring that those who hold the greatest power over other people’s lives are responsible enough to pay their fair share of taxes. If they are not responsible enough to pay their taxes, then they certainly are not responsible enough to be a Congressman.

Compared to the burden Congress has imposed on other ordinary citizens who hold positions of far lesser authority and impact, this is truly the minimum requirement we could impose. Consider the range of positions and occupations which Congress has allowed or mandated much more severe invasions of privacy, all in the name of the Greater Public Good. Positions from pilots to military servicemen to police and firemen to ordinary government employees are subject to invasive inquiries ranging from random drug tests to periodic background checks. 

There would be a great deal of irony if Congress insisted upon these measures for others, but claimed privacy rights for themselves. A dishonest, tax cheating Congressman is a far greater danger to the Republic than others in public service who must trade their privacy for the Greater Public Good. A dishonest Congressman hurts all Americans and our Republic.  I say it's time to start demanding of them the bare minimum of accountability, an annual tax audit!

Come on Congressmen, Man Up!  Volunteer to be audited every year, and help restore American’s trust in their government.

Dan Murphy

        

James Madison, our beloved fourth President, a founding father, and by many considered not only to be the principle author of the Constitution but the “Father of the Constitution” is credited with the quote:  "The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted”.  It is in the spirit of the founders, and in acknowledgment of the wisdom of James Madison and others, that we call for an annual financial audit by the IRS for specific men and women having power at our national level.  

Our first amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."  Clearly the founders expected that Government will be petitioned for redress of grievances.  In this case, the grievance is a loss of confidence in government due to the appearance of tax impropriety among many who hold or have been considered for high office, both elected and appointed.  In first amendment terms, the grievance then is “We have lost confidence in the financial integrity of officials with regard to their proper payment of taxes,” and the redress required is "to be subject to an annual tax audit" to restore that confidence.

When we first considered a petition in support of this concept, the very first questions that crossed our minds were:

For what is the petition asking?
Who is the petition asking?

Let’s decompose some of the problems regarding  how a petition can really do some good, and see how the petition meets these questions.

First of all, a petition that is workable - is actionable.  Something should happen as a result of the petition (or request if you prefer). Since government typically grinds along at a lethargic pace, we have to both ask for something that can be done now, and something that will be systematic and long lasting.

So the very first action requested is that those in high office to submit to our wishes and volunteer to be audited.  This requires no legislation, and no party support.  It is a decision of conscience for every individual official.  Unless there is a severe tax violation, perhaps the other significant implication of this decision is how the Representative, Senator, or Official would be seen by their peers.  Would they be seen as “breaking ranks” with those with whom they work?  Talk about peer pressure!  Can you imagine one official saying to another, "Representative X is making us all look bad with this tax audit thing!"

This brand of ironic and intense peer pressure advocates not standing out as “better than the other guy”.  It’s a tragic commentary that those who have competed to be best, who have run campaigns showing why they are better qualified and able than the next guy, now might be willing to settle for mediocrity in financial accountability.  But none the less, the first thing we can do is ask for them to comply, and to have the summary results of the audit released.

Second, there has to be a willingness on the part of the IRS to make the release.  They don't do this now, so it's something new for them.  That means that the Secretary of the Treasury, under direction from the President, must make an operational plan to support both the audit and the summary disclosure.  Since the President is the Chief Executive, he sets the direction, and the Treasury must follow his mandate.  So the second paragraph calls on the President to direct the Secretary of the Treasury to act.

Finally, the long term.  It will take some time to put this idea on the legislative agenda and to drive it through to completion.  There is absolutely no way that Congress will self impose this type of mandate unless they believe is is the lesser of two evils.  The worst evil for a Representative or Senator (I’m sure this sounds pretty cynical, but it’s all too true) is to lose their seat.  So our elected officials need to think that they either do this, or they are thrown out.  What would make them believe that?  Massive public outcry.  A flood of letters to their offices and emails stating that they will not get a vote if they don’t undertake this initiative.

We ask the President to make this his initiative.  To take a dose of this medicine, and lead, by volunteering himself for an audit.  We then ask him to draft and submit to Congress  legislation making this annual audit and disclosure process the law of the land.  We call for the President not to give up.

So the petition asks for immediate actions.  It has a plan to actually do something.  It looks to short and long term.   And it specifically calls on both Members of Congress, and High Executive Branch Officials, to act now, with individual integrity, and without regard for their peers.

We’ve seen a thousand petitions.  Usually, they are not as focused and explicit as we would like to see,   This one is very clear, very focused, and very do-able.  It only requires 60 Senators and and a majority of the 435 Representatives to commit an act of individual conscience, then follow it up with their support for their own act.

Unlike at the time of Madison, we today have a communication resource with the power to rapidly express any concept to millions of Americans, and to collect their responses.  Because of this liberty, we have proposed an Internet based petition.

And we ask for your zipcode, so we can say that a certain number of Minnesotans, or Floridians, or Californians support this to their Senators and Representatives.  Please rest assured we will not spam you, sell your address, or otherwise be obnoxious.  We may send you a note informing you of how this effort is going, and suggesting an action from time to time.  Your zip code also lets us craft a link to your Congressional Representative’s email or other address, in case you would like to craft a message to them directly, making this easier for you.

I think we can all agree that it’s time to see a bit more personal integrity in action.  Please support this initiative.  Let’s get this one done for America.  Sign Here: www.ipetitions.com/petition/AuditCongress/index.html

Pete Langlois