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Anti-government protests in Turkey - Washington Post Posted: 04 Jun 2013 07:04 AM PDT ![]() Turkish protests continue, floods inundate German towns, French Open tennis, elephant conservation and more. |
Issa hauls 'Spock' before committee - Politico Posted: 04 Jun 2013 08:39 AM PDT House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is hauling the man who plays Spock in the IRS "Star Trek" spoof before his committee this week. Faris Fink, the commissioner of the small business and self-employed division, will testify before the committee on Thursday at a hearing on IRS conference spending. Continue ReadingOther witnesses include acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration chief watchdog J. Russell George — who will release a report Tuesday on the IRS conference budget — and Gregory Kutz, an assistant inspector general. Issa (R-Calif.) has been aggressively probing the IRS since news broke last month that the tax-collecting agency had inappropriately singled out tea party groups as they applied for a tax exemption. He's suggested he'll bring Lois Lerner, the head of the tax-exempt division, back to the panel after some claimed she lost her Fifth Amendment right by delivering a statement last month proclaiming her innocence. And over the weekend, he released partial transcripts of the panel's interrogations of Cincinnati-based IRS employees, arguing that they show the IRS scandal directive came from Washington. Thursday's hearing will zero in on conference expenses, including those used to film the "Star Trek" parody and a separate dance video released over the weekend. In the six-minute video filmed for a 2010 California-based conference, Fink and other IRS employees star in a "Star Trek" parody in which Planet Notax has succumbed to taxpayer anarchy. But Starship Enterprise sends federal workers to assess the tax situation. And the "monster" they're fighting? Uncollected tax revenue. "I just received an emergency medical call from the planet! Chris, they're dying down there. … They call it the Tax Gap!" an agency employee says in the video. But Fink — playing Spock — says there's no reason for fear because they can just travel back in time to an IRS conference in the 21st century on planet Earth to "pick up some Tax Gap vaccine." "The travel expenses and medicine can be itemized," he said. |
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