When "an informant's statements are against her penal interest [it] significantly strengthens the informant's credibility," the court said.
The picture painted by the court is hardly one of an agency raging around the country out of control and trampling taxpayers' rights.
Rather it looks more like a lone state trooper trying to enforce a 55 mph zone on a road where half the drivers go 80.
But that seems to be what Congress wants. Last month the House voted to cut President Bush's budget request for the IRS for next year by more than $380 million. The Senate has not yet acted, but if the House funding level becomes law, Internal Revenue Commissioner Mark W. Everson wrote in a letter to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), it would "jeopardize . . . enforcement initiatives" and "substantially reduce our ability to hire an additional 4,100 enforcement personnel," which the agency had hoped to do.
In fact, the cut would leave the IRS $80 million short of what it needs to pay the enforcement people it hired this year, he added. "We would likely have to freeze hiring and not be able to cover employee losses in our service and enforcement areas, which would result in a net reduction in IRS staffing," Everson said.
Too many speeders? Fire the cops.
If you're a speeder, that sounds like a good idea. But if you drive at the legal limit and worry about getting hit, it might give you pause.
And honest taxpayers are getting hit. The "tax gap" between what Americans owe and what they actually pay is running between $250 billion and $311 billion -- a figure, and it's only a guess, that works out to an average of about $2,000 extra per tax return that taxpayers have to shell out.
The average cost of a private room in a nursing home in this country is $192 a day, or $70,080 a year, according to the MetLife Mature Market Institute. The average length of stay in a nursing home today is 2.4 years, which makes the average cost of such a stay about $168,192.
But rates vary widely across the country, the survey found. The most expensive area is Alaska, where the average cost across the entire state is $561 a day, or $204,765 per year. Second is Stamford, Conn., at $331 a day, or $120,815. The least expensive area is Shreveport, La., at $99 a day, or $36,135 a year.
Paying taxes to Iraq? If so, you can take a credit for them against your U.S. taxes, the Treasury Department said last week. U.S. tax rules generally allow taxpayers a credit for taxes paid to a foreign country, but special rules deny such credits for countries with which the United States does not have diplomatic relations or that have been identified as sponsors of international terrorism. Iraq had been listed as such a country, but the State Department has certified that it no longer is.
