Flagrant Paranoia On The Far Right-- And The Delusion That Tax Evasion Is A Right

If you think that the disruptive teabagger nuts only run around chanting "Liar, Liar" and "Read the bill" (the Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh version of "the bill," not the actual bill, of course) you'd only be half right. They have other, more arcane chants that pop up at all the town halls across the country-- like sudden coordinated shouting for "tort reform." Yesterday, in the account of the highly successful-- if not quite as entertaining as Barney Franks'-- town hall event Alan Grayson held in Orlando, I noticed one of the self-righteous and ill-informed cranks was whining that he opposes health care reform because it'll "usher in socialism" and "expose his bank accounts to government scrutiny." I heard a lot of the wingnuts grousing about that government-poking-into-bank-accounts stuff at the teabagger event I went to as well.

It's one of their memes. Knowing what a stickler he is for facts and never letting anything slip by, I called Alan Grayson last night and asked him what the hell they're carrying on about. He told me it was more of their flagrant paranoia, and he said he looked into it to make sure he understood what they're actually referring to. "There was a lot of faux specificity... shouting about page 59, lines 21-24, so I went back and went through it carefully. The lines refer to a provision that encourages health care providers to arrange to receive payments electronically (ACH) rather than by paper checks. It's just a cost cutting provision with no nefarious undertones." Yep... right-wing paranoia, stoked by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and irresponsible Republican politicians earning their keep from their Insurance Industry paymasters.

Now, on the other hand, there are a group of Americans who should be very much afraid of the power of the federal government. Perhaps you noticed that yesterday quite a few multimillionaires who haven't been paying their taxes-- by stashing their money offshore-- are actually about to really get the government poking around in their bank accounts. The IRS made a deal with UBS (a crooked Swiss bank) which is resulting in UBS turning over 4,450 names of willful tax evaders.

Switzerland's largest bank, UBS AG, is set to give the U.S. government information on 4,450 accounts suspected of hiding money from the IRS. In June, the U.S. and Swiss governments came to an information-sharing agreement after a six month battle over how much the bank would divulge. The Swiss government says it will fulfill a request for the information within a year.

Back in February, UBS admitted to participating "in a scheme to defraud the U.S.," paid a $780 million fine, and gave the IRS the names of 250 American clients who hid assets. The IRS then sued the bank for information on 52,000 accounts. UBS argued that disclosing more information would violate Switzerland's banking confidentiality laws but eventually agreed to hand over information related to 4,450 accounts that were of "the greatest interest" to the IRS.

Since UBS admitted its part in the scheme, four of its clients have agreed to plead guilty to failing to report their offshore bank accounts. Thousands of other clients have avoided penalties by sharing their accounts with the IRS under a special voluntary program that ends in September.

About $18 billion was being hidden, and there will be stiff fines and possible prison sentences coming soon. Teabaggers and wingnuts who I've spoken to actually seem to believe that they have the right to evade taxes. Hopefully the government will deal with them the way they need to deal with all serious lawbreakers.