{"id":562988,"date":"2021-06-14T08:21:47","date_gmt":"2021-06-14T12:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=562988"},"modified":"2021-06-14T08:21:52","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T12:21:52","slug":"no-one-will-be-held-accountable-for-illegally-leaking-billionaire-tax-documents-that-should-scare-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/no-one-will-be-held-accountable-for-illegally-leaking-billionaire-tax-documents-that-should-scare-everyone\/","title":{"rendered":"No One Will Be Held Accountable For Illegally Leaking Billionaire Tax Documents. That Should Scare Everyone."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fno-one-will-be-held-accountable-for-illegally-leaking-billionaire-tax-documents-that-should-scare-everyone%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=562988&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1090495926-1200x800-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>Anytime a media outlet receives confidential tax documents that can\u2019t be obtained through legal means (like a Freedom of Information Act request), one needs to question who is responsible.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, ProPublica <a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax\">published<\/a> the \u201csecret IRS files\u201d of America\u2019s wealthiest men, including Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Elon Musk, Carl Icahn, Warren Buffett, and George Soros. The article has been rightly criticized for conflating \u201cwealth\u201d with \u201cincome\u201d and trying to make it appear as though these billionaires are not just using tax loopholes to avoid paying an adequate amount of taxes, but also that they are not being taxed properly because increases in net worth aren\u2019t taxed.<\/p>\n<p>As Washington Examiner columnist Tim Carney (my former colleague) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tpcarney\/status\/1402253490454421512?s=12\">explained<\/a>, taxing \u201cwealth gain\u201d would be like you getting taxed because your house went up in value, even if you didn\u2019t have any plans to sell it. Certainly no one would support being taxed this way, and carving out such a tax for certain Americans would be unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<p>Yet ProPublica believed they had a massive scoop, one that would spur wealthy politicians who constantly complain about wealthy Americans \u2013 like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) \u2013 to introduce legislation to fix the alleged injustice. The legislation will go nowhere, but many people will likely believe something is wrong with billionaires not being taxed this way. ProPublica\u2019s \u201ctrue tax rate\u201d it applied to these particular Americans could also be applied to anyone who owns stocks or a home, assessing everyone\u2019s tax rate relative to their net worth.<\/p>\n<p>The bigger story, of course, is <em>how<\/em> ProPublica obtained these private documents. These documents can\u2019t be obtained legally, they had to have been leaked or provided to the outlet through nefarious means. Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/asymmetricinfo\/status\/1402236760432824322\">noted<\/a>: \u201cThis isn\u2019t a case where you could have gotten one person\u2019s partial records from an accountant or a disgruntled ex-spouse. Practically speaking, unless all the billionaires have the same tax attorney, I suspect the only place the data could have come from is the IRS itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maybe there is an explanation. If anyone has one, I\u2019d love to hear it. As McArdle further posited, perhaps the IRS was hacked \u2013 which should scare everyone \u2013 or there is an employee who has leaked this information.<\/p>\n<p>The incident is similar to when The New York Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/nyt-bombshell-report-on-trump-taxes-missing-one-key-word-illegal\">released<\/a> former President Donald Trump\u2019s tax returns \u2013 returns which Trump\u2019s attorneys said were incomplete, inaccurate, and misleading. Even still, the documents showed no illegal activity on Trump\u2019s part.<\/p>\n<p>How the Times received those documents has never been revealed and no one has ever been held accountable for the illegal leak. That will most likely be the case for the ProPublica trove of tax documents, even though someone had to have broken the law to provide those documents \u2013 and they need to be held accountable.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, this time it was billionaire tax documents, and people tend to have little sympathy for people so wealthy. Last time, it was Trump\u2019s tax documents, and of course the media and millions of Americans openly despised him, so few cared.<\/p>\n<p>But people <em>should<\/em> care about the leaking of private documents. It\u2019s a crime, and we\u2019re already seeing the net get wider when it comes to victims. Does anyone think this will be the end of \u201cinvestigations\u201d like this? Next it might be famous millionaires, who won\u2019t likely receive any sympathy either, but after that, who knows. It could be used against political opponents, or people who engage in \u201cwrongthink.\u201d Eventually, it can be used against <em>you<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>That should scare everyone.<\/p>\n<p><em>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anytime a media outlet receives confidential tax documents that can\u2019t be obtained through legal means (like a Freedom of Information Act request), one needs to question who is responsible.On Tuesday, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2280187,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1090495926-1200x800-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"No One Will Be Held Accountable For Illegally Leaking Billionaire Tax Documents. That Should Scare Everyone.","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-562988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GettyImages-1090495926-1200x800-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"No One Will Be Held Accountable For Illegally Leaking Billionaire Tax Documents. That Should Scare Everyone.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2280187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}