Marketplace: News Archives

Friday, April 13, 2001

This is Marketplace for Friday, April 13th

For most of American adults the shear terror associated with Friday the 13th horror flicks pales in comparison with a pile of 1040 forms stacked to the ceiling. And with just a few days until taxes are due, the prospect of a midnight run to the post office while praying that all those pencil scribbles are legible and correct looms large for millions. But as Marketpalce's Stephen Henn reports years of cuts at the Internal Revenue Service may have tamed the beast.

For Americans not inclined to turn this weekend into an Easter Egg hunt for tax deductions, there’s scrambling to get the 1040 forms—or the 4868 Automatic Four Month Extension forms—pretty much wrapped up. Need we mention that the deadline for a postmark or computer filing is Monday Midnight. The Internal Revenue Service is not in top fighting form as it reaches the Tax year 2000 crescendo. Marketplace’s Stephen Henn reports.

It just might be a workable definition of compassionate conservatism a kinder, gentler Internal Revenue Service so hobbled by budget cuts and congressional mandates it finds itself incapable of going after almost a million tax chiselers and cheats. Documents obtained by the New York Times show the IRS has effectively given up on trying to collect from roughly a third of all Americans who have fallen behind paying their taxes. That decision, according to the Times, cost the government $2.5 billion dollars and last year alone let more than 650,000 tax delinquents off Scott free. Charles Davenport is a tax professor at Rutgers University.

Charles Davenport: Of course if collections go down because of a lack of enforcement that difference will have to be made up someway. Any one person not paying his or her chare of their taxes has a very big impact somebody else has to make that up at some point.

Davenport says until the IRS invests millions more in new technology it will continue to have trouble enforcing the law. But yesterday the congressionally appointed IRS Oversight Board released a report saying President Bush's budget continues to under fund the agency. The board went on to call the IRS "broken" and said deteriorating enforcement there was leaving many Americans with the impression that cheating on their taxes is easy.

In Washington I'm Stephen Henn for Marketplace.

Earlier this week, we told you how the popular internet portal Yahoo was allowing an adult video store to set up within its big electronic tent. Today Yahoo did an about-face and announced said it won’t allow the sale pornography-related products via its main U.S. web site. The move comes in the wake of protests. From the Marketplace technology desk, Laura Sydell reports…

Despite a decline in Internet advertising and first quarter losses, Yahoo has decided to remove pornography-related products from its web site. The move comes in the wake of growing protests against the nation’s most popular Internet portal.

Sex sells, but it won’t be sold on Yahoo anymore. Yahoo officials say they are removing pornography products from their web pages after receiving angry emails from users. And a religious group, the American Family Association, called for prosecution of the company charging that it is selling – quote -- obscene material and child pornography. Jeff Mallet, President and CEO of Yahoo, denies they’ve been doing anything illegal, but says the company does respond to its users.

Mallet: "We listened to them, decided that it made the best decision for our users, which is extremely important to us to pull those types of merchandise and items off of our Yahoo shopping, auctions, and classifieds."

Yahoo has actually been selling adult products on their web site for two years, but the company came under increased scrutiny after recent news reports that it planned to expand its sales of sex related videos and DVD’s. The decision to stop selling adult material comes on the heels of announcements by the Internet Company of first quarter losses and a 22-percent decline in revenue. Giga Information Group analyst Andrew Bartels says Yaho says the timing makes sense.

Bartels: "You might as well put out the news at a time when you just announced bad financial results. You might as well get all the bad news out at one time."

CEO Mallet says adult materials only brought in a small percentage of Yahoo’s revenue. From the technology desk, I’m Laura Sydell for Marketplace.

The stock markets were closed in the U.S. and Europe for Good Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average will go into Easter Monday down six point one percent for the year so far. The Nasdaq Composite is down 20 percent in 2001.

Rundown