A retired Methodist missionary versus the IRS

[Sapphire Blue]

Over a period of years, Ms Clark, a missionary, earned more money than she needed to live on & contributed up to $2,000/yr to an IRA. In 2002, she cashed the IRA, withholding the 47% which is used to finance wars. Now the IRS is after her...

A retired Methodist missionary versus the IRS
by Clare Hanrahan
SojoMail 4-12-2006

To help finance a future George W. Bush has painted as permanently at war, the IRS has raided Ruth Clark's bank accounts, taking all her money. Every month, the IRS has continued to seize 15% of Clark's Social Security income, leaving this retired Methodist missionary without adequate means to meet her living expenses.

"I intentionally live on the edge of poverty to avoid paying for the war machine," Clark said. "Would it be right for me to murder? Would it be OK for me to make children orphans? Do you think it would be OK for me to support a war where children are maimed, where they lose their arms, their legs, their eyes? How can I pay for that?"

Clark is a familiar presence to many as she makes her way throughout downtown Asheville, North Carolina. She walks almost everywhere, usually pulling behind a small, wheeled cart decorated with bumper stickers decrying injustice and war. Many Fridays she stands at Vance Monument with the Women in Black in a public expression of grief for the violence of all wars, foreign and domestic.

(snip)

"The IRS came after me for the deferred taxes they said I owed them." Clark said. They "put a lien on my Credit Union account in California in 2004. They emptied it out."

"I wrote and told them of my conscientious objection to war," Clark said, "but they came back again and took the money from my bank in Asheville. My checks started to bounce and the bank, Blue Ridge Savings, charged me for each one. My Social Security and my pension from the Mission Fund had been electronically deposited. So the IRS took it all. I don't think they are singling me out. There are a lot of people they are after in the same way they are after me."

Continued @ http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=news.display_article&mode=C&NewsID=5348

[bullimiami]

1. our bastard government squeezes pennies from the poor and lets

billionaire corporate thieves get away.

will we ever see justice?

[Sapphire Blue]

2. Speaking of billionaire corporate thieves getting away...

Another excerpt...

According to the 2004 report, "Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years," published by researchers from Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, "In 2003 alone, 46 Fortune 500 companies paid zero or less in federal income taxes. These 46 companies...told their shareholders they earned U.S. pretax profits in 2003 of $42.6 billion, yet they received tax rebates totaling $5.4 billion. Almost as many companies, 42, paid no tax in 2002, reporting $43.5 billion in pretax profits, yet receiving $4.9 billion in tax rebates."

The report states, "Loopholes and other tax subsidies cut taxes for the 275 companies by $43.4 billion in 2001, $60.8 billion in 2002 and $71.0 billion in 2003, for a total of $175.2 billion in tax breaks over the three years."

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=news.display_article&mode=C&NewsID=5348

[RufusEarl]

3. A sad and true story, but maybe a moral to the story can be had!

"Don't put your money where the government can get at it"

[Sapphire Blue]

4. How would you suggest she keep them from seizing her SS income?

I understand your point, but they can intercept her SS income before she ever receives it.

[RufusEarl]

5. These are the accounts, i was referring too!

on my Credit Union account in California in 2004

took the money from my bank in Asheville

my pension from the Mission Fund