[Mike Irwin]

WARSAW, Va. -- Crystal Foster's father advised her to spend the $500,000 income tax refund she got two years ago. When the government came looking for its money, the Fosters said it was their rightful reparations, since their ancestors were slaves.

Though there is no federal reparations program, Foster had spent the money in eight days, buying a $40,000 Mercedes Benz, paying off her student loans and helping her brother pay for his first year at Virginia Tech.

Foster's father, Robert Lee Foster, prepared her tax forms and was convicted along with his daughter of trying to defraud the government. He maintains he did the right thing.

"Black people are not treated as humans, but as things by the U.S. government," he said in an interview at the Northern Neck Regional Jail. "We were used as resources to enrich this country and we get no inheritance from the wealth we brought."

According to the Internal Revenue Service, more than 80,000 tax returns were filed in 2001 seeking nonexistent slavery tax credits, totaling $2.7 billion. More than $30 million was mistakenly paid out in slave reparations in 2000 and part of 2001.

That number dropped significantly last year after stepped-up scrutiny of tax returns and an aggressive media campaign targeted against scam artists promising to secure tax credits for blacks....

(story continues at link)

Whole story is here:

Slave Reparations case... (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Slave%20Reparations)

[Quartus]

No sympathy coming from this direction. If nothing else, they are guilty of criminal STUPIDITY!

[C.R.Sam]

Paid off her student loans....commendable.
Did it with our money............theft.

Sam

[Keith]

"We were used as resources to enrich this country...."

"We"? This guy was a slave? His daughter was a slave?

Personally, I support "reparations". Any ex-slave should be able to take any ex-slave owner to court and take every dime they have.

Keith

[BigG]

They'll have a lot of time to reminisce about their eight day shopping spree - behind bars.

[TallPine]

According to the Internal Revenue Service, more than 80,000 tax returns were filed in 2001 seeking nonexistent slavery tax credits, totaling $2.7 billion. More than $30 million was mistakenly paid out in slave reparations in 2000 and part of 2001.
The IRS is really on top of things, aren't they ....? :rolleyes:

[rock jock]

Here is a key statement:
But the government has also begun quietly cracking down on filers of false claims after years of looking the other way.
Uh, excuse me, but if I file a false claim or fail to pay taxes, the IRS would be all over me. I guess I am not part of a protected class.

[Jeff White]

According to the Internal Revenue Service, more than 80,000 tax returns were filed in 2001 seeking nonexistent slavery tax credits, totaling $2.7 billion. More than $30 million was mistakenly paid out in slave reparations in 2000 and part of 2001.

So people or computers at the IRS just paid out $30 million dollars....That is more then outragous. Has the director of the IRS resigned? Why not? How many petty bureaucrats have been fired? What about the criminals who filed the other $25,500,000.00 in false claims, are they being prosecuted too? :fire:

Jeff

[Pilgrim]

So people or computers at the IRS just paid out $30 million dollars....That is more then outragous. Has the director of the IRS resigned? Why not? How many petty bureaucrats have been fired?

The last I read on the subject, some employees at the IRS with the same ethnic persuasion were being investigated for assisting (looking the other way) when these returns were processed.

Pilgrim

[scbair]

I think reparations are in order. The U.S. government outlawed slavery, in effect taking legally owned private property from the slaveowners. I truly believe the government should pay reparations to the slaveowners (or their descendents) for this action.

Those imbeciles who seek "reparations" for their ancestors having been enslaved (and I wonder how many could actually document that, by the way) would, logically, have to support this, too. If a slave were computed to have enriched the nation by $X, then any slaveowner/descendent who suffered the loss of 10 slaves should be entitled to reparations of $X x 10 x 4 (at least 4 generations have passed since the emancipation).

OK, OK, I realize logic must never apply, and I am not serious, anyway. Are they?!?!?!?

Flame suit "off.":neener:

[tiberius]

Personally, I support "reparations". Any ex-slave should be able to take any ex-slave owner to court and take every dime they have.

One small nit to pick - Since it WAS the law of the land the reperations should have come from public funds, not just from the owners. The owners did nothing illegal.

That being said, I agree that former slaves deserve reparations, just like survivors of the Japanese-American internment camps. Unfortuantley there are no former slaves left alive so ......

Those who claim that they deserve reparations today, need to consider how much better off they are as Americans than they would be as Africans today. They helped build America into what it is and they ARE reaping the benefits.

At least the family in the story had good taste. College educations and low-end Mercedes are very classy ways to spend stolen funds. :)

[Jeff White]

The last I read on the subject, some employees at the IRS with the same ethnic persuasion were being investigated for assisting (looking the other way) when these returns were processed.

Either this was a very large conspiracy within the IRS or there are insufficient internal procedures in place to catch this. Either way it is the director's fault. The director should resign and be barred from ever working in government again.

Jeff

[LawDog]

Foster's father, Robert Lee Foster,

Anyone else notice something kind of quirky about this old boys name?

It does seem kind of odd that a guy claiming damage done to his ancestors because of slavery, has the same name as a Hero of the Confederacy.

Might oughta change his name to Ulysses Grant Foster before his trial gets to court. :D

LawDog

[Silver Bullet]

If reparations are in order to redress past denials of constitutional rights of citizens by the government, doesn't that mean that gun owners are due reparations for infringements by the government on the Second Amendment ?

[Jeff White]

At least the family in the story had good taste. College educations and low-end Mercedes are very classy ways to spend stolen funds. :)

Either the daughter had a heck of an education to pay for herself, or they didn't spend all of the money. 40K for a Mercedes and her brother's first year at Virgina Tech would hardly equal half a million dollars. Wonder if she's not a lawyer or doctor with 400K in student loans to pay off. Heck a year at Harvard is 26K so I can't imagine how she'd run up student loans like that. Something's fishy about the story that she spent all the money.

Jeff

[BigG]

Jeff, I think the full article stated the IRS collected back about 1/2 the money.

[tcdrennen]

Hey, my only male adult ancestor in this country at the time of the WBTS died a prisoner at Andersonville - do I get any reparations? Or at least an exemption on paying them?

In all seriousness, IIRC the 13th and 14th Amendment preclude any compensation to slave owners, as well as payment of any debts incurred in support of the Confederacy.

Any debt to former slaves was paid in blood and gold from 1863 (Emancipation Proclamation) to 1876 (end of Reconstruction.)

[LawDog]

African-Americans are not the only people in history to get the short end of the stick.

If reparations are paid to the descendants of people who got the shaft, then the African-Americans need to get in line behind the Native Americans, the Picts, the Irish, the Maya, the Scottish, the Olmecs, the Carthaginians, the Cathars, the Koreans, the Ainu, etc., etc., ad infinitum.

Hell, last I heard the original BOHICA was the Neandertals at the hands of the Cro-Magnons.

It boils down to this: Everyone's ancestors got screwed over by someone else at some point in history. And everyone's ancestors screwed somebody else over at some point in history.

Some people need to get over it.

LawDog

[TallPine]

Personally, I favor reparations to descendants of former slaves, as long as those reparations are paid in the form of one-way fare back to the African nation of their choice, where those oppressed individuals can finally live in freedom, peace, and luxury.

Otherwise, STFU :neener:

[Waitone]

You'll get slammed hard by the IRS if you protest your taxes by stapling a teabag to your return.

Glad to see the IRS cracking down on these feather merchants. Now when are they gonna audit Jesse?

[Mike Irwin]

I'm Welsh.


YOU OWE ME, ELIZABETH II!

[rock jock]

I have always favored reparations as long the money we pay is matched dollar for dollar by the African nations that sold their ancestors into slavery.

[Quartus]

They helped build America into what it is and they ARE reaping the benefits.



Oh, details, DETAILS!!!



Just had lunch with a South African ex-pat who thinks Apartheid was one of the stupider ideas of all time, not to mention being immoral. Be that as it may, the folks who are now in charge are destroying that country.

Andbody who wants to is welcome to flee to that haven of equality and opportunity.


I suspect some of us wouldn't even mind spending tax dollars for a one way ticket.


Woo hoo! Oh, Jesse! We have something for you! :D

[tiberius]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They helped build America into what it is and they ARE reaping the benefits.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Oh, details, DETAILS!!!

Which do you want details on? Do you not think that Blacks had anything to do with making America what it is today? Or do you not think that they are benefiting from American society?

[El Tejon]

I'M sick to death of all this whining conjured up by the race hustlers. Time to say the obvious:

Bobby Lee, as a descendent of those who paid in blood to crush the traitors and for you to be free, you owe ME. "We" paid in blood and the only estate we are left is the debt of the Welfare State created for you and your votes.

I promise to use some of the money to build tributes to the fallen Union soldiers who saved you, perhaps on every street named after Martin Luther King . For an inscription, I'm thinking, "On behalf of all African-Americans, we thank you Union soldier and sailor."

You have it reversed, Bobby Lee. It YOU who owe us. WE pulled the wagon while YOU rode in it and now carp that WE are not pulling fast enough.:fire:

Morgan Freeman's character in "Glory" had it exactly right, time to shut up and ante up.

[Quartus]

Whoa, tiberius! You misunderstood me. The facts you pointed out are both true and VERY relevant, and MY (sarcastic) point was that the reparations crowd do NOT pay any attention to those important facts. They act is if they don't exist, in fact.

[Missouri Mule]

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!

college gradiat huh? figures..:banghead:

[greyhound]

maybe I'm being too historically based here, but-

wasn't reparations supposed to be 40 acres and a mule? :confused: