HR3- IRS Putting The 'I' in Intrusive

And if you thought the Saudis were a bunch of fucked up sexual retards, goddamn! they got nothing on the 221 Congress Critters that sponsored this bill. Fuck me! have they nothing better to do? I felt worn out just reading this story. Only in America? Not arf!

GOP Bill Would Force IRS to Conduct Abortion Audits

Were you raped? Was it incest? And other questions the government's tax cops would have to ask women who've terminated pregnancies.

By Nick Baumann

March 18, 2011 "Mother Jones" -- Under a GOP-backed bill expected to sail through the House of Representatives, the Internal Revenue Service would be forced to police how Americans have paid for their abortions. To ensure that taxpayers complied with the law, IRS agents would have to investigate whether certain terminated pregnancies were the result of rape or incest. And one tax expert says that the measure could even lead to questions on tax forms: Have you had an abortion? Did you keep your receipt?




In testimony to a House taxation subcommittee on Wednesday, Thomas Barthold, the chief of staff of the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee, confirmed that one consequence of the Republicans' "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act" would be to turn IRS agents into abortion cops—that is, during an audit, they'd have to detemine, from evidence provided by the taxpayer, whether any tax benefit had been inappropriately used to pay for an abortion.

The proposed law, also known as H.R. 3, extends the reach of the Hyde Amendment—which bans federal funding for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake—into many parts of the federal tax code. In some cases, the law would forbid using tax benefits—like credits or deductions—to pay for abortions or health insurance that covers abortion. If an American who used such a benefit were to be audited, Barthold said, the burden of proof would lie with the taxpayer to provide documentation, for example, that her abortion fell under the rape/incest/life-of-the-mother exception, or that the health insurance she had purchased did not cover abortions.

"Were this to become law, people could end up in an audit, the subject of which could be abortion, rape, and incest," says Christopher Bergin, the head of Tax Analysts, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit tax policy group. "If you pass the law like this, the IRS would be required to enforce it."

The proposal, which House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has declared a top priority of the new Republican Congress, has 221 cosponsors and is expected to pass the House easily. The bill caused controversy and sparked a national protest campaign in January after Mother Jones reported that it would limit the Hyde Amendment's rape exception to cases of "forcible rape." Experts told Mother Jones that move could prevent Medicaid from paying for abortions in many rape cases, including statutory rapes. Despite the presence of many other controversial provisions, the bill regained momentum after its sponsors promised to strip the "forcible rape" language. But during Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) highlighted the IRS enforcement issue, which has until now flown under the radar. He asked:

Would a woman have to certify that the Health Savings Account funds she spent on birth control pills or for a doctor's visit weren't used to pay for an abortion? If a woman were audited, would IRS agents be at her house demanding court documents or affidavits proving that her pregnancy was the result of rape or incest? more

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