Daily News - IRS squeezes every penny from citizens, but GE pays nothing (ContributorNetwork) Daily Business News
Reuters – A picture illustration shows a 100 Dollar banknote laying on one Dollar banknotes, taken in Warsaw, January … 
COMMENTARY | We're a few days from the April 15 tax deadline. I just received an IRS mail audit tapping us for an additional $708 on top of the thousands we paid in 2009.
It galls me that General Electric and several other large corporations paid zero taxes and have no one hounding them.
Perhaps I can tell the IRS bloodhounds that I've moved my profits offshore, like GE did. Or maybe I could borrow from General Electric's army of tax lawyers, certified public accountants, former Treasury officials, and former members of Congress.
The president doesn't know, doesn't care, or doesn't get it. He recently appointed GE chief executive officer Jeff Immelt to a presidential economic advisory council.
The IRS is not out to crucify me. I didn't report $2,200 of royalty incomeâ€"entirely my fault.
I called my father-in-law to ask him about itâ€"he's a tax wizard.
"They want you to report it even if it's only $10."
But wouldn't that create more work for the highly paid IRS representatives, I wondered. He kept laughing until I hung up on him.
If the IRS charged me a flat rate of 10 percent, I'd gladly pay itâ€"even without going through myriad home office deductions.
Because of my tax crime, the IRS charged me with a $25 penalty, plus interest, plus additional tax liability.
I wasn't sure which of the addresses was the right place to send the check and the 1040X and the Schedule C, so I called the IRS. Avoiding the automated messages, I pressed "0" and "0" and "0" and "0."
Ultimately, I spoke to three people, each of whom gave me different information. Maybe they will be replaced by the additional 4,182 people requested in the Obama budget proposal.
In response to my questions, the reps seemed to be reading from different prepared scripts. I longed for the clarity and warmth of the automated recordings.
The reps hadn't heard of depreciation, but they had memorized the URL of the IRS. Go there, they said, it will answer all your questions.
I did go there, entering a query into the search window:
"When will you be sending my $708.00 back?"
There was no response to that query. However, there was a handy list of paragraph and letter codes used in common IRS notices, useful for entertainment when you're in a catatonic state.
Anthony Ventre is a freelance writer who has written for several weekly and daily newspapers, for Demand Studios, and for AOL Online. He is a former news director for radio station KPEN in Los Altos, Calif. He enjoys news and business writing.
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