"Cruz said he envisions shifting the tracking and collection of federal taxes to 'some much smaller division' of the Treasury Department," the Washington Examiner reports. "The senator said that replacing the current, complex tax code with a simple flat tax would eliminate most of the work the IRS needs to do, making the agency obsolete and 'irrelevant'."'

Bob Unruh reports at WND: 

The Internal Revenue Service, already probably the most-feared and reviled federal agency in America’s history, is trying to live down its earned reputation for attacking conservative and church groups.

There still are multiple investigations ongoing as well as a multitude of lawsuits over the agency’s actions against those groups over the last five or six years. The IRS actions also are the focus of outrage in Congress where members are considering an arrest of former IRS official Lois Lerner for her actions to allegedly conceal information about the agency’s discriminatory practices.

Now it’s being revealed that the IRS could be launching another clandestine campaign against Christian churches, with targeted investigations and more.

Read more here.

So notes the Washington Examiner, with a link to IRS publication 502.

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United States v. $35,651.11 -- Can the federal government "use civil forfeiture to take your money when you have done nothing wrong -- and then pocket the proceeds?" asks the Institute for Justice (IJ). "The IRS thinks so."

"For over 30 years, Terry Dehko has successfully run a grocery store [Schott's Supermarket] in Fraser, Mich., with his daughter Sandy," IJ states. Then, "in January 2013, without warning, the federal government used civil forfeiture to seize all of the money from the Dehkos’ store bank account (more than $35,000) even though they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. Their American Dream is now a nightmare."

According to IJ, "Federal civil forfeiture law features an appalling lack of due process: It empowers the government to seize private property from Americans without ever charging, let alone convicting, them of a crime. Perversely, the government then pockets the proceeds while providing no prompt way to get a court to review the seizure."

On Sept. 25, 2013, "Terry and Sandy teamed up with the Institute for Justice to fight back in federal court. A victory will vindicate not just their right to be free from abusive forfeiture tactics, but the right of every American not to have their property wrongfully seized by government," IJ concludes.

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Todd Beamon reports at Newsmax:

The Internal Revenue Service is still targeting tea party and conservative groups in their applications for tax-exempt status, a full three months after the scandal first erupted.

"In plain English, the IRS is still targeting tea party cases," an aide to Rep. Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, told the Washington Examiner.

Camp, a Michigan Republican, released a transcript of testimony from an IRS agent who told a Ways and Means investigator that the agency was still targeting such groups, the Examiner reports.

The testimony was given in a closed-door session on Aug. 1, according to the Examiner.

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David Carton writes at American Spectator:

Among the most offensive features of the ironically titled "Affordable Care Act" is its designation of the Internal Revenue Service as the main enforcer of the law’s many mandates, taxes, penalties, and reporting requirements.

It exponentially increases the power of a group of bureaucrats notorious for repeatedly abusing their authority.

Now, . . . these IRS enforcers are asking their congressional representatives to spare them the indignity of enrolling in Obamacare’s insurance exchanges.

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Madeleine Morgenstern reports at The Blaze:

The Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the political targeting scandal invoked her constitutional right not to answer lawmakers’ questions on Wednesday, but defiantly asserted that she has done nothing wrong.

Lois Lerner leads the IRS office that determines which organizations receive tax-exempt status, and was the first to publicly disclose earlier this month that the IRS gave extra scrutiny to conservative groups.

Theo Caldwell writes at the Daily Caller:

As Congressman Dave Camp has observed, the tax code of the United States is now ten times as long as the Bible, with none of the good news. . . .

Recent news that the Internal Revenue Service has been enforcing its already inscrutable doctrine with caprice and venom -- directed at conservative groups, Republican donors, and supporters of Israel, among others -- confirms the worst suspicions of many Americans, of all political affiliations.

There is a lot of talk in Washington, and across the country, of a desire to reach bipartisan accord and accomplish great things. Here is an opportunity for just that.

"It is perhaps Victor Hugo’s best-known sentiment that nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come," Caldwell writes. "Hugo, who wrote timelessly and interminably on the vicissitudes of oppressive bureaucracy, included this aside in Les Miserables: 'It may be said, that there is one infallible thermometer of the public misery and riches -- the cost of collecting the taxes.'

"If that is true," Caldwell continues, "and accepting Hugo’s attendant observations that such cost is inversely proportionate to overall economic health, why not make taxation simple and transparent for everyone?

"One hopes he would agree that abolishing the IRS is an idea whose time has come."

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