Originally published on Forbes.com Oct 14th, 2014
Tonight I am going to see UnFair – Exposing The IRS. If you want to see it on the big screen, I hope you don’t have plans tonight, because it is a one time showing on over 600 screens. You can check here to see if it is playing at a theater near you. My frequent play on good old Bones McCoy’s doctor line may be getting tedious to some of you, but here I go again. I’m a tax blogger not a film critic. Nonetheless, I am going to give it a whirl and give you my review tomorrow.
Here are some thoughts on what we might be looking forward to tonight.
From A Documentary Maker
When it comes to evaluating UnFair, I will probably have an advantage over you as I am attending with my good friend, Jonathan Schwartz of Interlock Media. Jonathan has made several documentaries about human rights and environmental issues. Closest to my heart and in the interest of fully disclosure greatly encouraged by me is Turned Out, which is about sexual assault of prison inmates, one of the worst human rights abuses in the country.
I asked Jonathan how you distinguish a documentary from a propaganda piece. He told me
It is propaganda if it is relentless preaching of a message with convenient and persuasive use of evocative images that is utterly one sided, presents no questions and does not require the audience to think.
Looking at the UnFair trailer from a technical viewpoint, we might be looking at a propaganda piece.
It is an infomercial narrated by the subject. Use of iconic tyrants raising their arms and then Obama raising his arm. Feature film type music driving the point across. Very short sound bytes and fast cutting. No attempt here to even appear journalistic, or be even asking any questions.
From The Horse’s Mouth
I spoke with Craig Bergman who is the producer and narrator of UnFair. I asked him what the main message of the film is. Even though the focus seems to be on IRS abuse, that is not what the film is ultimately about. Craig believes that the income tax is immoral and should be replaced by a consumption tax – specifically the so called Fair Tax. In Craig’s opinion angels could be running the IRS and it would still be corrupt and abusive since it violates five of the ten amendments that make up the bill of rights – specifically the First, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh and Eighth. We ran through them all together, but I’ll save that for tomorrow’s post after I see the film.
In terms of Jonathan’s concerns about the trailer, I asked Craig if he included opposing viewpoints. He told me that he didn’t. People with opposing viewpoints can raise their own million dollars and make their own film.
Craig said that the main takeaway from the film should be that – Tax policy is moral policy.
The Gadsden flag (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
From A Tax Pro
I reached out to a few people besides Jonathan. The quickest answer was rather an amusing one.
Guys (and Dolls) – I am “locked behind closed doors” working on the last of the GD extensions. If you were extended, and I have not received your 2013 tax “stuff” by now, you are out of luck. I am not accepting any more GDEs for a timely 10/15 filing, and I will not be preparing any more 2013 Form 1040s this year.
That was an auto-response from Robert Flach – The Wandering Tax Pro. It reminded me that Gadsen Films did not pick the ideal night to attract people who prepared tax returns for a living to see their film. Bob came up for a breath of air, though and offered me this.
Considering the author, producer, and star is a Tea Party member/supporter it certainly has an agenda.
I have not followed the IRS Scandal closely. While I love conspiracy theory fictional movies, I am not paranoid enough to think that, like the many jokes over the years, the government uses the IRS to punish those who criticize it. I think the FU with Tea Party NPO application scrutiny was the result of over-zealous employees. Of course, the cover-up is usually worse, and gets more press, than the actual FU.
While I am obviously seriously opposed to the Tea Party movement, believing it is dangerous because of its religious right philosophy (forcing specific individual religious beliefs of the few on the public – no different from Muslim states) and because it is partially responsible for the idiocy in Congress (inability to compromise or work together) – I do not think Tea Party NPOs should get more scrutiny than any other applicant. I believe all political-based applicants should be closely scrutinized.
Throwing The Book At You
As it turns, if you absolutely can’t make the film, there is a companion book. You can get a feel for it from one sentence:
The tax code is what is funding all the immoral deeds of abortion and sodomy.
Part of the logic there is that the Supreme Court decision on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a tax case. Never mind that the case that won was about the estate tax, which I didn’t notice being mentioned at all and other DOMA cases covered a lot of non-tax issues.
I’ll give Mr. Bergman a mixed review on his historic analysis. On the one hand there is:
America went from tiny colony to world power, all without a tax on income, using sales, trade, and tariffs.
Why do people who use that argument always leave out sale of public lands, which frankly were acquired in a somewhat dubious manner?
On the other hand we have:
Due to the political difficulties of taxing individual wages without taxing income for property, a federal income tax was impractical from the time of the Pollock decision until the time of the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment.
Mr. Bergman there has bravely written off the support of the Irwin Schiff inspired wing of the tax protester movement, who might otherwise have been an important part of his constituency.
The middle part of the book is a fast paced, one-sided sound bite type of discussion of the scandal. There are chapters on the Audit the IRS Rally, the Tea Party, Pro-Life groups and veterans. The general tenor of the discussion shows up in the chapter heading for the discussion of the Z Street controversy – First They Came For the Jews.
Based on the book, I’m expecting to see a lot of Lois Lerner tonight. It brings up without explaining one part of the scandal that I have not been able to figure out. The claim is made that harassment of the Tea Party may have thrown the 2012 election to the Democrats. If the Tea Party was not a political organization how could crippling it have affected the election? Maybe somebody will explain it somewhere else.
The book closes with the solution which is the Fair Tax. A national sales tax collected by the states. My own experience is that state revenue departments are not exactly warm and fuzzy when compared to the IRS, but who knows?
By the way, even though Craig Bergman said he was not seeking balance, he does provide some. Even though there is an overwhelmingly Christian perspective in the book he does quote an atheist – Ayn Rand
If you know something is immoral, you propose to stop that something from a moral perspective.
I have to admit that lack of time made me skim portions of the book. Unlike the Pro, I don’t have any client GD extensions left, but there is my own.
Why I Am Afraid To Not See This Film
Even thought the book may be enough, I’m sure going to follow through on my commitment to see this film, now that I know Chuck Norris is recommending it.
Don’t ever tire of speaking up and fighting against those things that dismantle our country. And that’s another reason for getting out to your local theater this Tuesday night, watching and echoing the battle cry, “Unfair”!
I read somewhere that
Fear of spiders is arachnophobia, fear of tight spaces is claustrophobia, fear of Chuck Norris is called Logic.
It turns out that even Chuck Norris is afraid of the IRS.
Afternote
I received a late comment from Adam Chodrow of Arizona State University.
The trailer, with its clips of police pepper spraying people (something no one contends the IRS has done), makes pretty clear that this will not be an even handed discussion of the wisdom of taxing income or of how the IRS actually operates. Rather, this has the feel of the 1998 Senate hearings, where witness after witness testified to IRS abuse, leading to the 1998 Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. It later turned out that many of the stories were made up or grossly exaggerated. No one claims that the tax code or the IRS is perfect. However, laying all of the country’s woes at the feet of the tax code and IRS seems a bit over the top.
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