Test 20 I Civics And Government World Relations 40: Fill & Download for Free

I would like to say that just look around and see the other states where elections were held with Delhi or earlier and check what have done in that this time span & which govt. is there and then see the report cards (and if don't believe in report cards then go and see the work in their area) of AAP's MLAs. I think that after doing this you won't be needing any other explanation for "WHY Kejriwal".and for facts this is the wrok done by AAP in 49 days....No opinions. Just cold facts. and I think this is enough for "right choice" and just check their new initiative towards world class city Delhi Dialogue.Education:-- Set-up helpline for admission in schools. No donation is allowed. - Cancelled examination for admission of teachers to primary schools after getting news that the exam papers were leaked. The exam would take place again in a month.- AAP conveyed to BJP ruled BJP-ruled Municipal Corporation of Delhi(MCD) that there are provisions to strip civic bodies of their powers, hinting AAP government could do so if- MCD did not grant "No Objection Certificate" (NOC) for opening new schools.- Removed departmental quota in admission.- Delhi government launches education helpline number 011-27352525 to redress grievances related to school admissions- AAP volunteers check 500 schools in DelhiElectricity :- 50% limited period subsidy on electricity and CAG Audit against Power distribution BESCOMs Approved.- Discoms to be penalised for unscheduled power cuts - People can write to government about defect in power meters, 10,000 letters will be randomly selected and their meters will be checked.- To resolve complaints of “faulty” meters in the capital, the Aam Aadmi Party government plans to rope in Delhi College of Engineering (now Delhi Technological University) as a third party to check such meters. The move comes after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had announced a new meter-testing drive.Water: -Free 20K litre/month water promise fulfilled in 48 hours for with meters, Self financed by Delhi water board. Any overage above 20K litre customers have to pay full price.- Delhi Jal Board restructuring on the very first day including Delhi Jal Board CEO and 8 Officers- Delhi Jal Board seizes 22 tubewells in South Delhi. This is related to water mafia.- To address the issue of water crisis in the national capital, Delhi government has decided to revive the ""non-functional"" rainwater harvesting systems in schools to raise the ground-water level. Around 800 government-run schools have RWH pits and more than 50 per cent of them are non-functional, mostly due to lack of monitoring on part of the previous regime of Sheila Dixit.- Delhi water board officials suspended on corruption. Sting operation is done by HT news and AAP took the action immediately and inquiry is ordered by Manish sisodia.Women safety:-Surprise late night time spot checks visits by Rakhi Birla. Bus stands, Auto stands, Police stations checked.- Vishakha guidelines implemented by AAP, the first political party to do so.Anti Corruption :-Arvind Kejriwal orders FIR against Sheila Dikshit in CWG scam.- Three top govt officials K.K. Goswamy(Deputy Secretriat land and building division),Kiran Taneja(MCD), JL Kathuria(MCD) arrested on corruption charges.- Chief water analyst Vinod Kumar, meter reader Atul, Patwaari Sunil caught on camera taking bribe suspended in 30 minutes of telecast of news Aaj Tak Channel- AAP Govt suspends 3 Delhi Jal Board officials and shifts 800 others.- Software to deal with corruption- Biometric attendance system/devices for Babus- Arvind Kejriwal seeks 40 Anti-graft-officers, already got some from police department- Arvind Kejriwal to open CWG scam files- Anti corruption helpline launched.- AAP MLA Somnath Bharati launched website to manage public utility complaints -www.aapconnect.com- Kejriwal government tables Jan Lokpal Bill and both Congress/BJP oppose the move.- Two constables arrested in extortion case. This was done through the AAP introduced anti-corruption helpline.- New anti-corruption helpline number is 1031, in 36 hours 23,000 calls received, one official has been trapped.- Kejriwal orders CAG audit of Delhi’s Bus Rapid Transit operator - Case against Mukesh Ambani, Moily over gas scarcity, pricing.Health: -Delhi to get 100 new ambulances- All the government and private hospitals in the national capital have been directed to provide "immediate and free" medical treatment to the victims of acid attack or rape.- Health Minister Satyendra Jain does a major revamp of the entire healthcare sector of the city. 16 out of the total of 34 superintendents of Delhi hospitals were given their marching orders. Many of the medical superintendents were holding the same post over the past many years, which had led to corruption and laxity of work.- AAP Government issues advisory & directs hospitals, private and government, to provide “immediate medical care, without any delay to persons requiring emergency medical care, especially victims of crimes, road accidents, acid attack, sexual assault or critical patients”; to not hold bodies of deceased persons “under any circumstances” and to not delay processing of death certificates.- Health minister visits 10 major hospitals in Delhi. Talks to doctors and patients to elicit their problems and suggestions for improvement.- Email address set up for suggestions from public about their views on problems with health set-up and their suggestions for improvement.Law & Order :-The Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government demands action against the cops involved in the case of death of Karan Pandey, the pillion rider who was killed in police firing on the night of July 27-28 last year.- The government wants accountability fixed on cops in a case reported on Monday of a girl allegedly raped in a car.- AAP Government Recommends SIT Probe of 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots. Lieutenant Governor gives nod to SIT probe on 1984-anti Sikh riots.Judiciary :-Delhi government seeks 100 new judges in district courts - The Delhi government has decided to remove its chief prosecutor in the Delhi High Court, Pawan Sharma, after discovering that his tenure expired three years ago. Sharma was appointed the Delhi government's Standing Counsel (criminal cases) by the then Sheila Dikshit administration on December 21, 2009, for a term of one year.Unauthorized Colonies: -Government prepares road map to use new method to map illegal coloniesSocial Justice : -Arvind Kejriwal's new idea: Abandoned buses as night shelters for the homeless in Delhi- Delhi Labour Minister Girish Soni has directed his department to ensure that wages are paid to all workers as per the minimum notified rates.- Delhi Government has ordered an inquiry into the death of six homeless persons who died allegedly due to cold in Nigambodh Ghat area.- The Delhi government has trained over 100 volunteers to carry out inspections of shelter homes in various parts of the city, in the wake of death of six homeless persons on the streets allegedly due to cold.- 55 night shelters built by 22nd Jan.- Manish Sisodia makes surprise visit to homeless shelter provided by Delhi Govt. to check their working.Unemployment:-One lakh Delhi contract workers to be regularisedInflation :-AAP government files contempt petition against Centre challenging Centre's CNG gas distribution policy.- CNG price slashed by 30%, piped gas by 20%Taxation Sector :-AAP government simplifies VAT filing system.Transport Sector :-5500 auto rickshaw for Delhi-NCR- Auto from Delhi can now enter NCR- Aravind Kejriwal-led AAP govt to issue 15,000 auto rickshaw permits under SC/ST categoryFinancial Aid to Martyrs : -AAP government announced one-crore compensation for the wife of a Delhi Police constable killed while on duty.Austerity Measures :-AAP ministers refuse security, red beacon and other perks such as bungalows- Kejriwal government has also done away with the practice of keeping reserved elevators for the ministers and MLA's. People taking the lift standing alongside a cabinet minister is a common sight now.you can also check the answers of following question too....Should Arvind Kejriwal become the Chief Minister of Delhi again? Why or why not?

There are many ways in which a thing can be true, and not all of them are equal.While ProPublica’s story is mostly true in a narrow sense, it’s also concerningly simplistic. It gives us a taste of the truth — enough to make us drunk with outrage. But what it doesn’t do is arm the reader to participate in the sort of discussion that might solve the real problems underneath.Compounding this, the dozens of clickshare re-writes of ProPublica’s story by other outlets have almost all been worse. What the ProPublica version lacked in breadth, the rest lack in depth (and also breadth).While we’re going to going to tackle those themes a bit more while unpacking the main elements of the tax story itself, just two bits of house-cleaning first:My main interest here is bias. Not political bias, mind you. More in the vein of what Jon Stewart suggested was the default bias of all mainstream media: “sensationalism, conflict, and laziness”.Some angles of this story get into murky territory, especially as it concerns legal recourse. I’ve done my best to be transparent about where I’m sure and where I’m speculating. As ever, I offer financial rewards for all corrections and meaningful improvements.Ok, on we go.Historical ContextBack in 1998, Congress passed the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act, which, among other things, spelled out one notable big-letter goal: “having 80% of Federal tax and information returns filed electronically by the year 2007”.Fast forward to 2002. The Bush II administration announced a new policy related to achieving that 80% goal: the creation of Free File Inc. (hereafter FFI) as part of the Free File Program (FFP).The basics:FFI is a consortium of a dozen major tax-prep companies.FFP is a deal that FFI made with the IRS wherein they would create software that allowed the bottom 60% (now 70%) of US earners to file their taxes electronically for free (no cost to the IRS or the filer).In exchange, the FFI demanded a non-compete agreement from the IRS. For as long as FFI was supplying these freebie filing options, the IRS couldn’t go and create their own.The FFP wasn’t law. Just a department policy predicated on a renewable contract between the IRS and the FFI. (This contract is referred to as a “memo of understanding”, or MOU.)Now, there are many ways of parsing this. On the one hand, free electronic filing for 60% of taxpayers was a win. Plus the government didn’t have to bother with creating this software from scratch. On the other hand, FFI members had motivations beyond charity and civic pride. In exchange for their “donation”, they got to ensure the IRS wouldn’t cut their revenue streams by creating a better option of their own. (They knew that most filers would end up buying a paid product regardless of free options, which is something we’ll get to.)All said though, this being a negotiated contract meant it was mostly a win-win. The IRS got to focus elsewhere, and taxpayers got something useful. And in the event that the deal no longer made sense, the IRS was free to either renegotiate or try something new.What Happened This WeekThe House passed the Taxpayer First Act of 2019 this past Tuesday. Section 1102 of said bill began with this clause:The Secretary of the Treasury, or the Secretary’s delegate, shall continue to operate the IRS Free File Program as established by the Internal Revenue Service and published in the Federal Register on November 4, 2002 (67 Fed. Reg. 67247), including any subsequent agreements and governing rules established pursuant thereto.The force of this is pretty simple: the FFP (and the MOU underlying it) would graduate from department policy to federal law.But before we get into the implications of that, I want to contrast the above with a clause from a previous (unpassed) bill:The Secretary of the Treasury, or his delegate, may not establish, develop, sponsor, acquire, or make available individual income tax preparation software or electronic filing services that are offered under the IRS Free File program, except through the IRS Free File program, the Internal Revenue Service’s Taxpayer Assistance Centers, Tax Counseling for the Elderly, and volunteer income tax assistance (VITA) programs.Note the difference: in this second version, the non-compete aspect would have been part of the federal legislation itself (as opposed to it being a clause in an MOU referenced by the law). It also would have limited the IRS from sponsoring private partners outside the confines of the FFP. This is the kind of bill that lobbyists really wanted. What they got this week was a distinctly lesser win.Anyway, as for the MOU in question (now in its 8th version, having been renewed late last year), there are a few clauses in play here:In recognition of this commitment [of FFI members to offer free filing software to the bottom 70% of earners], the federal government has pledged to not enter the tax preparation software and e-filing services marketplace.But while this exchange is a classic quid pro quo, this isn’t to say the deal is entirely equal.Any unilateral changes imposed by the U.S. government on FFI whether by statute, regulation, or administrative action will result in an immediate re-evaluation of the decision to continue FFI, and could result in an immediate suspension of free services upon the decision of each Member.This is where things get really interesting, and where FFI lobbyists clearly earned their money. The new bill, while less onerous than previous attempts at codifying the MOU, does include one slippery sentence: it mandates that the government “shall continue to operate” the FFP.Here’s why this matters: if the IRS decides to revise the MOU to remove the non-compete angle, the FFI would have a powerful incentive to exercise the above clause. The presumption is that they’d then argue something to the effect of “the government’s unilateral decision forced our hand, and now the FFP is basically dead, and the law says that the government needs to keep the FFP alive”. (I’m not sure how successful this argument might be, but it certainly seems that the legislation was crafted to allow the FFI to make it.)But there’s one more thing from that MOU that represents a curveball:Should the IRS commit funding to offer Services for free to taxpayers, the IRS shall notify FFI immediately.This clause has been in the MOU since the first draft. It basically allows the FFI to stop offering the free services if the IRS begins their own. But this is somewhat in tension with the unilateral changes bit. If the IRS exercises an option that’s always been part of the MOU, does that weaken a potential claim by the FFI?(To be clear, I don’t know how this would play out in court. Different judges could rule differently — though there are surely precedents I’m unaware of that might make certain outcomes more or less likely. What is clear though is that there would be non-trivial litigation risk for the IRS if they were to drop the non-compete and the FFI were to object.)Anyway, there’s more to the MOU that we need to look at, but I want to set up that discussion by reviewing a few other things first.There Must Be A Better Way!The crux of this week’s commentary has mostly been “man, it would be great if the US could be like other countries and have an option where the IRS just sends out a pre-filled postcard, and all we need to do is verify and sign it”.The easy narrative here is that this system doesn’t exist solely because of the FFP (i.e., the companies that make up the FFI don’t want to lose revenues, and have thus thrown lots of lobbying dollars at Congress to keep the FFP in place, and that’s why we can’t have nice things).While there are other problems with this narrative, I think it’s worth getting into a fuller list of cautions that past studies have raised as it concerns the US pursuing such a program (pulling mostly from this 1996 GAO report, though leaving out all the arguments that have been obviated by tech advances):At the time, 55% of filers would have needed to make amendments to any pre-filled form the IRS could have come up with (or else would have needed to just do their own filing from scratch). While that number would be lower now, the complexities of US tax regimes (at both federal and state levels) combined with the backwater efficiency of most inter-governmental data-sharing systems would keep this number from being quite as low as that of most other developed countries.Tax prep companies pay lots of tax on their profits, and they employ lots of people who pay lots of tax on their wages. If you eliminate those jobs, the government takes in less money. Plus governments have to pay benefits to unemployed people until they find new work.Lots of US citizens don’t trust the IRS, which could mean that lots of pre-filled forms would be challenged, thus increasing the overall workload. In contrast, the selling point of “we’re going to help you pay the fewest dollars to the big bad government” is compelling to lots of Americans, and often solicits more trust (even if it shouldn’t).There was a fear at the time that people would be less likely to declare side income if their filing was pre-filled (I’m sure there’s relevant data from other countries who use this system — would love a link if any reader happens to know of quality research here).Employers are really bad a sending on forms in a timely way, making it hard for the IRS to gain the needed data to make correct calculations while also maintaining their current tax calendar.We can add two more things to this list:The IRS is intentionally under-funded (down nearly 20% this decade, despite a host of new responsibilities). It’s hard to imagine either party giving them loads of money to institute new programs in the current climate, whatever their potential benefit. It’s just an electoral nightmare. Lobbyists and messaging consultants have done too effective a job at poisoning that particular well.US government agencies are generally bad at managing software projects. It isn’t at all clear that they’d get further developing their own system vs. forcing the FFI members to improve their existing offerings.Now, those arguments vary in power. I’m skeptical that even taken together they mean that the IRS shouldn’t try a large-scale pilot. But the last two are definitely non-trivial. Giving the IRS a larger budget is widely considered a non-starter, and changing political perception there would be a massive undertaking. But if you had to get them more money for either oversight or building their own program, oversight would be a whole lot cheaper, and may have a higher ROI.Bad Faith EffortsYou might be wondering: if the FFP has been around since 2002, why do only ~3 million people a year use it? (A number that’s been trending downward.)There are a handful of high-level answers here:Per the MOU (4.35), it’s actually the IRS’s responsibility to market the FFP. Doing this well would require them having a budget to do so (and them having the institutional competency to use that money well).Also per the MOU (4.15.4), FFI members are responsible to advertise the free service from their “Free File Landing Page”. They are not responsible to make this landing page easily accessible. In most cases, said pages are only reachable via the IRS’ little-known FFP program page.Most of the FFI’s FFP offerings suck (on purpose). The IRS has the right of review, but doesn’t use it very effectively. (As the FFI largely sees improving these offerings to be contrary to their financial interests, they’re only going to go as far as they’re pushed.)Some FFP offerings suck less, but the FFI is dominated by Intuit (TurboTax) and H&R Block (i.e., the two players most opposed to improvements).Free options aren’t generally good at helping you find all eligible deductions, leading most filers to opt for a paid service they perceive to be better at that.Filing taxes normally via TurboTax or a local outfit isn’t all that hard or expensive, and most taxpayers just aren’t bothered enough to seek an alternate solution.Of those factors, I want to focus on 3 and 4. To illustrate what bad faith means here, let’s look at how TurboTax goes about fulfilling their FFP obligations.Now, you might be thinking “well, that’s no so bad at all! — after all, the free option is clearly marked in an attractive way”.But then you click on that “simple tax returns” subheader and you’re greeted with a curious disclaimer:Hmm. Now why would these things not be covered? The obvious answer would be that artificial restrictions are useful for pushing customers to premium options. Pretty normal practice. But doesn’t the MOU forbid this type of upselling on FFP offerings?Trick question! The above offering has nothing to do with the FFP.TurboTax does have an FFP option, which does cover all those situations from the disclaimer. It’s just hidden. The only way you’d ever find it is if you came in via a link from the IRS’ FFP program page. The fact that the two offerings share a confusingly similar name (“Free Edition” vs. “Free File”) is, ahem, a bit of poor luck. They say it isn’t their fault if consumers are confused, as it isn’t their job to educate them.And this is hardly the only kind of spirit-violating nonsense that FFI folks have gotten up to. Remember how the MOU demanded that the lowest 70% of earners all be given free options? Well, the MOU didn’t demand that each provider meet that goal individually — just collectively. The natural consequence? Each FFI provider has seemingly arbitrary restrictions on location and age/income ranges. While you’re guaranteed (if under the income cap) that one of them will work for you, the same one might not work for your sibling or next-door neighbor. It may not even work for you two years in a row! It’s complicated enough that the IRS had to develop a lookup tool that requires you to complete a survey to match you with the right offering. Friction, friction, friction.Why Governments Suck, Part IIf you read through the MOU, you might find yourself surprised at some of the clauses.4.36.3 - IRS and FFI mutually agree to support and promote Free File as an “Innovation Lab” to test, pilot, and offer capabilities to simplify taxpayer compliance, such as data importation offered by industry as described herein, and such as IRS’s Application Programming Interface (API) projects […]Yep, you read that right: the FFI actually has a mandate to create the sort of tax-filing experience we all dream of. (There’s a whole section on this.) On the balance, the MOU is honestly pretty taxpayer-friendly. The problem isn’t here — it’s in the fact that the US government is terrible at private-sector oversight, rendering most of these deals somewhere between one-sided and meaningless.This is why all those battles that Roger and Paul and Grover and Newt and Ralph fought in the 80s/90s mattered. They weren’t conservatives fighting against the encroachment of progressive values or the nanny-state. They were power-brokers looking to get paid by corporations keen to reduce oversight to something of a farce. (And they definitely had their allies on the left in this effort.) Now, sure, reasonable people can disagree on how much oversight the market needs. That’s why we have a democratic system that necessitates healthy compromises. Good legislation should certainly aim for balance, and so on. But what those men did was use the “government vs. markets” debate, not to shift the compromise, but to obscure what they were really doing: making sure that whatever compromises Congress reached would be toothless anyhow.The reality here is that the MOU itself is largely fine, as is the new law. The litigation risk of backing out of the non-compete, however severe, is mostly a red herring. The IRS is still free to help other competitors (like CreditKarma) enhance their free services, and there’s no reason that FFI offerings couldn’t be made to be as good or better than whatever the IRS could come up with themselves. That the current options suck isn’t about who is building the software. It’s about the IRS having no real resources to either enforce/sweeten the MOU or market the FFP.And that, in turn, is a problem with public perception. The US can easily afford to properly fund the IRS (it would actually be a net savings on a longer timeline). But elected representatives are terrified of trying, largely thanks to the efforts of the Grovers of this world — along with a little help from the media.Why Governments Suck, Part IIIt isn’t a new observation that good governance requires an informed public. This has been a maxim since the first Greek experiments with democracy. Literacy and engagement are the central pillars of any nation worth living in.So why is the press doing such a poor job informing the public in a way likely to arm them with the data and context required to engage well?Let’s start with the ProPublica piece that set off this whole dialogue:Congress Is About to Ban the Government From Offering Free Online Tax Filing. Thank TurboTaxSetting aside the misleading implications of the headline as worded, let’s look at the article’s first paragraph:Just in time for Tax Day, the for-profit tax preparation industry is about to realize one of its long-sought goals. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving to permanently bar the IRS from creating a free electronic tax filing system.Note those words: “permanently bar”.Remember that Stewart line from the beginning about “sensationalism, conflict, and laziness”? Keep that in mind as you parse what exactly “permanently bar” might mean. It isn’t a term of art. Congress has no power to ban anything forever. That’s not how the law works. The closest we could get is a constitutional amendment, but even those can be re-written and re-interpreted. Laws, by their nature, are transitory things.The real focus of this new legislation isn’t permanence, but difficulty. The FFI hardly expects the status quo to last another 17 years, much less indefinitely. They just expect that litigation risk (and two-branch support) will act as a speed bump on change. Their monopoly is still written in pencil, but the erasers are now just that little bit extra harder to come by, which makes their clients happy.Now, you might object that I’m being over-sensitive to the meaning of words here, and that ProPublica’s take wasn’t all that bad. And this is where we have to get a little philosophical. Some believe that every journalist’s responsibility is something to the effect of “collect some facts, avoid outright mistakes, and work with an editor to make your story marketable”. To me, this is the equivalent of requiring them to “tell the truth and nothing but the truth” while leaving out the bit about “the whole truth” as either unimportant or impractical. The story that ProPublica told was true, but it agitated more than it informed. The FFI likely read it and said “well, this will make this week suck, but the outrage isn’t well-directed to any end that represents a real obstacle to us, so, hey, whatever”.Look, good journalism is hard. I get that. And there’s certainly value to communicating key facts quickly. Not every news bulletin can wait on an exhaustive search for whatever we might consider a realist approximation of “the whole truth”. But it seems undeniable to me that the current model is broken. And this is nowhere more evident than in how primary reporting is reprocessed by secondary publishers in their quest for clickshare.Say you thought “permanently bar” was wrong but not very wrong. How do you feel about the first sentence of TechCrunch’s repackage?Thanks to pressure from tax preparation industry, Congress is getting ready to ban the IRS from ever building a free electronic tax filing system.Does TechCrunch say “ever” here if ProPublica didn’t use “permanently” first? If I was a casual reader, I’d assume that “ever” implied some real finality, like a door being shut that couldn’t be re-opened. (Where the reality here is that this particular door can be sprung with precisely the same force with which it was closed.)In the same vein, consider this follow-on by Popular Mechanics:Filing Your Taxes Could Be Way Easier, But Congress and Tax Companies Are Conniving To Make Sure It Stays TerribleConniving! Reminds me of that old saw about how one shouldn’t ascribe to malice what’s better explained by incompetence (or, in this case, inadequate resources).Anyway, as to the article itself:Tucked away in section 1102 of the bill, which relates to the IRS Free File Program that ensures fee-free filing for people under a certain income threshold, is language that subtly prevents the IRS for developing its own system by mandating that the agency continue to work with the private sector in this endeavor. In other words, the legislation locks us all into the status quo.I credit ProPublica with at least this: however narrow their perspective was, at least they did their homework. Their bias was more toward sensationalism and conflict than laziness. Popular Mechanics (and dozens of others) went for the full trifecta, in a much more brazen way.As a non-exhaustive list of problems here:While, yes, filing your taxes could be “way easier”, shifting the software burden to the IRS would be no guarantee of making this so.Section 1102 was the 3rd of 47 sections. If their goal was to hide it in the stack, the crafters did a poor job.There’s a deep confusion here between the bill and the MOU.The actual non-compete language is the opposite of subtle.This is like the game of Telephone. Most secondary publishers do near-zero research and just repackage the primary article, leaving the signal to degrade with each step.And then we have Twitter.Who says there is no common ground in politics?Democrats and Republicans in the House just unanimously passed a bill that makes it illegal for the IRS to create a system to let Americans file their taxes for free online— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) April 10, 2019This system already exists! It’s called the FFP. That the IRS can’t create their own competing system to the one they already manage is a much narrower issue.(Also, for the record, passing a bill by acclimation isn’t the same as passing one via a unanimous vote.)It's hard to find a clearer example of Congress sabotaging the public good than a bill -- lobbied for by TurboTax -- prohibiting the Internal Revenue Service from developing a free online system for filing your taxes.https://t.co/4HuIZc9ZKO— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) April 10, 2019Ditto to above. This system already exists, and was developed under the auspice of the IRS.Also, the linked NYT piece (from their editorial board) includes this gem: “Instead of barring the I.R.S. from making April a little less miserable, why isn’t Congress requiring the I.R.S. to create a free tax filing website?”Umm, because the IRS already mandated the creation of several such websites? The assumption that the IRS would create a better one on their own is plausible, but (really) far from certain.Two facts:1. H&R Block and the makers of TurboTax spent $6.6 million lobbying last year. They want to ban the IRS from offering its own free, simple tax filing service.2. Congress is about to pass a law doing exactly that. https://t.co/giatnNh5mD— Eric Umansky (@ericuman) April 9, 2019The IRS isn’t getting “banned” from anything. They voluntarily signed a non-compete 17 years ago, which they renewed less than six months ago. (And this is from a ProPublica editor!)The extent to which all Americans suffer an annual cost in time and money to protect the monopolies of TurboTax and H&R Block is astounding. Is there any issue where Congress is more out of step with citizen desires? https://t.co/GIRijGpS9Y— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) April 9, 2019Like, I get the desire for simpler taxes. But is $40 and 15 minutes really “suffering”? (And, again, for the lowest 70% of earners, they don’t even have to shell out the $40 if they don’t want to. Though I guess you could say that using existing FFP sites is a form of suffering, if in an excessively first-world sense.)Congress can’t muster the political will to eliminate the carried interest tax break for private equity titans, but it can get together to prevent free tax preparation for others: https://t.co/3pEfW8EPnF— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) April 10, 2019No free preparation! Except for 70% of you! And a handful of other special classes!Anyway, I could go on. But the point is that if the goal is to get voters to hold politicians accountable, it would certainly help if the voters knew what was happening, and why, and where the real problems are.It’s difficult to see how all the current coverage supports such a cause.More Adventures in Water-MuddyingConsider this quote (from the original ProPublica piece, but re-used in several secondary articles):“This could be a disaster. It could be the final nail in the coffin of the idea of the IRS ever being able to create its own program,” said Mandi Matlock, a tax attorney who does work for the National Consumer Law Center.This is, um, pretty hyperbolic. Is there any justification for this? Does it aid clarity? Or does it just lend to the ever-marketable dynamics of sensationalism and conflict?Also consider the irreconcilable set of quotes in ProPublica’s sequel (published after lawmakers reacted to the first one).“The IRS chief counsel confirmed to his office that the Taxpayer First Act does not bar the agency from implementing a direct-file program.”“My staff pushed back on a long-standing policy that blocks the IRS from competing with private tax preparation companies […]”“Senate Republicans fit in some bitter pills and some problematic provisions,” said [Rep Katie Hill], who supported the bill as a whole, speaking on the House floor. “One of these is a piece that came to my attention today — which the corporate tax lobby has spent years and millions of dollars to get — which would bar the IRS from creating a simple, free filing system that would compete with their own.”I find this stuff infuriating, on three levels:Those who want to get quoted have biases and motives. Readers aren’t equipped to unpack those. Journalists need to do more than just “report the controversy”. Maybe that works for an AP news bulletin where speed is of the essence. But who is doing the work of coming in after and deconstructing for the reader why each party might have said what, and how their statements relate to their bios?Far too many journalists rely on services like HARO, where the experts are unknowns who respond to a call for a quote (vs. people with whom the journalist has an established relationship based on a keen understanding of competencies and incentives and likely spin). I know personally how low the bar is to getting quoted via HARO. I was never asked once to verify my identity or defend my position. What I said was just copied-and-pasted into a piece on the strength of a one-sentence self-supplied credential and my email address.Just because a politician has a quote doesn’t mean you should print it. It’s pretty clear that most who’ve commented on this legislation so far had/have (at best) a vague sense of what it contains, much less all the MOUs and external docs referenced in the bill. This isn’t uncommon. Only so many politicians have the right staff (and even then there are just hard limits on scope and priorities). Journalists ought to push back more to ensure that they aren’t just printing “um, I don’t reaaally know, but here’s my strong opinion that I’m told will play well to my base” quotes (or at least journalists need to carefully qualify those quotes when printing them).The Path ForwardI’ve written a lot over the past year about the failures of modern journalism — especially the hot-take/rapid-response/clickshare machine. There are things we can do to fix it, including some simple adjustments that could go a long way.In the absence of those changes, corporations like Intuit and H&R Block are going to have a field day. Their lobbyists will do what they’re paid very well to do, and our selective and ever-moving outrage will do nothing to solve the underlying problems. The MOU, whether law or policy, will continue to be enforced so poorly as to be one-sided, and tax innovation will be forever three or five years away.And so on and so on we’ll go, never to actually get anywhere, until we eventually decide that enough is enough, that the current model belongs in the dustbin of history, and that the time to make these changes is now.Note #1: I’m generally a fan of ProPublica. I thought their rundown last year was excellent, which has been true of a lot of their past coverage on this issue. I can’t really account for why this one missed the mark in relative terms.Note #2: An open question for any lawyer reading: could taxpayers sue the IRS for failing to meet the requirements set out in section 4.35 of the MOU (a promise to make “consistent, good faith efforts” to market the FFP)?

I am listing here the important scholarships which you can check:-USA Government Scholarships for International Students »Foreign Fulbright Student ProgramThe Fulbright Program are full scholarships in USA for international students who wants to pursue a Master’s or PhD degree. The scholarships can also be awarded for non-degree postgraduate studies. The grant covers tuition fee, textbooks, airfare, a living stipend, and health insurance.Humphrey Fellowship ProgramThe Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program provides a year of professional enrichment in the United States for experienced professionals from designated countries throughout the world. Fellows are selected based on their potential for leadership and their commitment to public service in either the public or private sector. The fellowships are full grants covering all related expenses.US Colleges and Universities that offer Scholarships for International Students »American University ScholarshipsAmerican University (AU) awards a limited number of generous partial merit scholarships to academically-qualified incoming international first-year undergraduate students. No need-based financial aid is available to international students. The merit scholarship range from U.S.$6,000 to U.S.$25,000 per academic year (renewable subject to conditions).Also see AU Emerging Global Leader Scholarship Program which awards scholarships to high-achieving international students who wish to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree at the University and who are dedicated to positive civic and social change. It is intended for students who will be to returning home to improve under-resourced, under-served communities in his/her home country.Amherst College ScholarshipsAmherst College currently runs a need-based financial aid program that provides assistance to financially needy international students. Once you have been admitted, your financial need is determined. A financial aid award that is equal to your need will then be offered. The award is sometimes called an “aid package” because it may include both self-help (employment) and gift aid (scholarships and grants).Berea College ScholarshipsBerea College is the only school in the United States that provides 100% funding to 100% of enrolled international students for the first year of enrolment. This combination of financial aid and scholarships offsets the costs of tuition, room, board, and fees. In subsequent years, international students are expected to save $1,000 (US) per year to contribute toward their expenses. The College does provide summer jobs to international students so that they may meet this obligation.Clark University ScholarshipsClark University offers the Global Scholars Program which are open to first-year applicants (not a transfer student) who has attended school overseas for at least four years as well as international citizens attending school in the United States. A scholarship of no less than $5,000 per year ($20,000 for four years, contingent upon meeting academic standards for renewal) and a guaranteed $2,500 taxable stipend for a paid internship or research assistantship taken for academic credit during the summer following your sophomore or junior year is included with the award.Colby-Sawyer College ScholarshipsInternational students are eligible for merit-based financial aid offered by Colby-Sawyer College. The scholarship value increases based on academic ability (measured in GPA) and range from $15,000 up to $24,000 per year. The college does not meet full financial need.Columbia College ScholarshipsColumbia College offers about 20 scholarships and awards to outstanding international students. The awards are one-time cash grants or 15%- 100% tuition reduction.Concordia College ScholarshipsConcordia prizes the contributions international students make on campus and is pleased to provide partial financial assistance to international students. The International Student Scholarship is based on academic ability and family need, amounting up to $25,000 per year.Dartmouth College ScholarshipsDartmouth College meets the demonstrated need of all admitted undergraduates, including those from other countries. Dartmouth College has scholarships and loans available to international students, which includes an allowance for travel to the U.S..East Tennessee State UniversityEast Tennessee State University (ETSU) offers the International Students Academic Merit Scholarship for new international students seeking a graduate or undergraduate degree. The scholarship covers 50 percent of the total of in and out-of-state tuition and maintenance fees only. No additional fees or costs are covered. The scholarship award can only be used for study at ETSU.East West Center Graduate Degree ScholarshipsThe East-West Center Graduate Degree Fellowship provides funding for up to 24 months for Master’s or Doctoral degree study for graduate students from Asia, the Pacific, and the U.S. to participate in the educational, residential, and leadership development programs at the East-West Center while pursuing graduate study at the University of Hawai’i.Emory College ScholarshipsEmory College offers need-based financial aid awards to a select group of international students each year. As well, international applicants are encouraged to apply for merit-based scholarships through the Emory University Scholars Program (November 15 deadline).Illinois Wesleyan University ScholarshipsMerit-based scholarships are offered to qualified international applicants with outstanding academic achievement and test scores on the required entrance exams. These awards range from $10,000 to $25,000 per year and are renewable for up to four years. In addition, two full-tuition President’s International Student Scholarships may be awarded each year to qualified international students for up to four years of study.Iowa State University International Merit ScholarshipsThe International Merit Scholarship is awarded to well-rounded students who have demonstrated strong academic achievement, and outstanding talent or achievements in one or more of the following areas: math and sciences, the arts, extracurricular activities, community service, leadership, innovation, or entrepreneurship. The awards range from $4,000 to $8,000 and are renewable.Michigan State University International ScholarshipsMichigan University provides a limited number of scholarship and grants to deserving international students at the undergraduate and postgraduate level. These financial packages are not designed to support your full academic program at MSU.New York University Wagner ScholarshipsThe merit scholarships are offered to a limited number of admitted students each application cycle, including international students. The scholarships are partial to full tuition scholarships ranging from $25,000-$47,000.Oregon University ScholarshipsEach year, the University of Oregon awards more than one million dollars in financial aid and scholarships to international students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. One of their scholarship programs is the ICSP Scholarship which awards 30–40 competitive scholarships to international students each year. Selected ICSP students receive a tuition-waiver scholarship ranging from $7,500 – $30,000.Wesleyan University ScholarshipsWesleyan University offers very limited scholarships for international students and is awarded on the basis of both exceptional qualifications and demonstrated need. In addition to the 11 Asian students who are awarded yearly under the Freeman Asian Scholars Program, the University provides financial assistance to approximately 15 international students from a pool of over 400 such applicants.University of the West ScholarshipsThe Lotus Scholarship is awarded to students who achieve high academic standards and demonstrate a financial need in order to attend University of the West (UWest). The Scholarship awards up to $5,000 or up to $10,000 annually to each successful applicant to apply toward his or her tuition, mandatory fees, room and board, and other expenses required for attendance at UWest.Institutions that fund international scholarships for study in the US »Joint Japan World Bank Graduate ScholarshipsThe Joint Japan World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program provides full scholarships to students from World Bank member countries to pursue development-related studies at selected Universities around the world. Students can choose to study in 8 participating USA Universities including Harvard University, John Hopkins University, University of Chicago, Cornell University and Columbia University.AAUW International FellowshipsAAUW (formerly known as the American Association of University Women) awards international fellowships for full-time study or research in the United States to women who are not US citizens or permanent residents. The scholarship are worth $18,000 for Masters, 20,000 for PhD and $30,000 for Postdoctoral students.Aga Khan Foundation International Scholarship ProgrammeThe Aga Khan Foundation provides a limited number of scholarships each year for postgraduate studies to outstanding students from selected developing countries who have no other means of financing their studies. The studies can be undertaken anywhere in the world including the US. Scholarships are awarded on a 50% grant : 50% loan basis through a competitive application process once a year.Hope This will help!