You may be at risk if you donated to a 527 Organization. For example a PAC which can make independent expenditures in Federal Elections. The most famous one was the Swift Boat Veterans. Another may be some Tea Party Groups. If you donated to a political organization (other than a candidates campaign or a National political party) you should check with the IRS to see if your social security number was leaked.

This is a potential budget buster. Those are deemed disclosures. According to the Code, there is a $1,000 fine that the Government has to pay to the Taxpayer for illegal disclosures. Tens of Thousands of Social Security Numbers disclosed at $1,000 per number equals about $100,000,000 per ten thousand. And if its proved that the disclosure was intentional the fine is $5,000. And if a taxpayer suffers an identity theft, the Government is liable for those damages. Now that would be a class action worth filing.

Wow, “in olden days a glimpse of stocking turned into something shocking now heaven knows, anything goes”.    I’m not sure even Cole Porter envisioned this.

The Supreme Court struck down DOMA.  This is one of those decisions that in terms of tax law is earth shattering.   Marriage pervades the Tax Code.  There are joint tax returns, there are marital deductions, there are Retirement Equity Act provisions.  In other words, lots of issues.  So where do we go from here.

(1)  Gay persons who are legally married under relevant state law have up to three years to amend prior Federal tax returns to go to joint return status or married filing separately.

(2)  The Government will presumably have the right to audit all legally married gay people who filed under “single” status and re-calculate their returns as married filing separately (don’t see them doing this because that would trigger a joint return and refund).  In this circumstance, they could go back three years.

(3)   This will complicate the budget negotiations in Congress, so look for increased rates.

(4)  For decedent’s dying in the last four years estate tax returns should be filed or amended if the decedent was legally married under state law.

After watching the great $50,000 taxpayer funded video of IRS employees line dancing, or the Star Trek training video, it reminded me that IRS is only one of many Federal agencies.   Is there any doubt that training videos and teambuilding retreat expenses are spent over and over and over again, from one end of the Government to the other.  Yet, rather than cut out these types of perks and costs, the Government instead chooses to sequester the pay of their employees.  Let’s assume that inside the IRS there are probably $500,000 year spent on employee training retreats and videos.  Now add the rest of the Treasury Department, Transportation, Agriculture, Defense, etc., you get some huge amounts of money going out the door.  Yes, people need to be trained how to do their jobs.  But what about meetings at local offices.  Supervisors training their underlings.  And of course skype conferences if you have to have someone from somewhere else.  Government needs to cut costs as the private sector has had to do.  It can do it by reducing everyone’s pay or laying people off, or looking for other cuts that can handle these cost reductions.

I have no doubt that these expenses were meant to be helpful to teaching employees.  But, we have to really evaluate the necessity of going overboard with expenditures which border on wasteful.   Perhaps if a few more Mr. Spocks were hauled before Congress, they might begin to understand that the day of being faceless bureaucrats is over, and in the day of cellphone videos, people are being caught on tape every day.  I talked to a fellow today who uses his cellphone to take pictures of people who litter and sends those to police.   Now add that his cellphone is hooked to the NSA and is it long before Big Brother is really watching.  Fehrenheit 951 and 1984 are right around the corner.