Shelley, I would argue that the major obstacle in ‘taxing terrorism’ as you say is the fact that a person or group first has to be labeled a terrorist prior to them receiving any specialized attention from the IRS, etc.

When the US Government still hasn’t taken any aggressive action against ‘potential’ citizens like Salah Soltan [1], who has traveled the world in support of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Global Caliphate Campaign, it is not realistic to think the ‘average’ terrorist fundraising cell in the US is going to get financially hammered. By average, I mean the smaller, store front operations that are not dealing with the numbers as say, the Holy Land Foundation, but are still actively raising funds for our enemies.

If we really wanted to get serious about foiling the financial foundations of the global jihad, we would start by increasing the monitoring of MSB’s (Money Service Business [2]) (aka wire transfer companies) here in the US. The billions of dollars that leave this country annually that end up in places like Nairobi and Abu Dhabi cannot all be for legitimate purposes. To add to the intrigue of the disappearing caches of cash, when a ‘person’ shows up to pick up the transfer, in say, Nairobi, there is no verification of who the recipient actually is. Most of the ‘supposed’ tracking of these transfers is done based on an individuals’ phone number—and we know that those never change (sic)!

Combine this with the governments’ weak enforcement of structuring (attempting to avoid transactions over a certain amount to avoid mandatory IRS reporting) laws and virtual amnesty granted by the government to MSB’s that do not file the proper paperwork (until after a larger financial institution, usually a US bank, reports them); and you have a network so murky and ripe for exploitation that it has to be considered a terrorists dream.

Everyone knows that financial criminals are treated much more gently than the violent offenders in the United States. The financial benefits are well worth the risk—unless the Feds catch you with Hezbollah pictures on your website and an AK-47 in hand [3], you are virtually guaranteed not to be officially labeled a “terrorist”.

Next in priority, and not far behind, the US needs to begin monitoring the activities of the thousands of “not-for-profits” or charitable 501(c)3’s (IRS code) that are operating in the US and/ or internationally, that are based here in the United States. The Holy Land Foundation, Global Relief Fund, and Kind Hearts for Charitable Development were not anomalies- there is a concerted effort to deceive and defraud the government and US taxpayers of their hard earned money- and to ship it to people who are trying to kill us and our allies.

And finally, the IRS needs to ratchet up their monitoring of, for a lack of a better term, ‘mom and pop’ style tax preparation services. It is one thing when a large company hires CPA’s or fledgling CPA’s to operate ‘storefront’ tax preparation services, but when a group (or individual) who appears to have no background or experience in the preparation of US tax paperwork opens up an office the size of a shoebox and manages to process thousands of returns single-handedly, it should be cause for suspicion. A large majority of these businesses are filling fradulent returns in order to gain moderate refunds from the government. They are not going for the 'home run', per se, but are very content with a high batting average.

In closing, I was not sure that you adequately made your point for what should be done, but you did provide an excellent foundational argument for why the United States should simplify the income tax process by means of transitioning to a national sales tax and/ or a flat tax system. That way, at least when all of the aforementioned groups engaged in their deceptive or fraudulent activities, ‘Uncle Sam’ would be getting enough of his share up front that he could use some of it to fund the investigations that need to take place to close them down in the long run.

Keep up the good work!

[1] Patrick Poole has done extensive research on Mr. Soltan. This link will open up his most recent findings: http://ohioagainstterror.blogspot.com/2007/10/former-hilliard-hamas-cleric-pictured.html

[2] To get a better idea of how many MSB’s there actually are in the US, go to http://www.MSB.gov and click around. Make sure to check states like MI, MN, OH, and CA.

[3] See articles on Hossein Zorkot of Dearborn, MI. He had dozens of pictures of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on his personal homepage, as well as pictures of himself with an AK-47, and when he was caught in a Deaborn, MI, park all decked out in black BDU’s while carrying the AK, the Feds still said his arrest was not linked to terrorism. His site can be found at http://zorkot.org/
or http://www.zorkot.org/JabalAmel.html; judge for yourself.