The IRS doesn’t have enough people to do their jobs and FOX News wants heads to roll!
Only, yeah, it’s the GOP who put them in this position.
But Republican lawmakers have managed to slash the tax agency’s budget by more than $1 billion over the last five years and eliminate about 13,000 jobs.
So heads have already rolled. Well, certainly all those job cuts have saved money, right?
Ordinary taxpayers have the bulk of their income reported by employers, and most taxes are automatically withheld. But businesses self-report much of their performance, just as wealthier taxpayers are supposed to come clean on capital gains.
“The only incentive we have to report accurately is the threat of being caught,” Gordon said.
The IRS’ Koskinen warned this week that the latest round of budget cuts for the agency means there will be 46,000 fewer audits this year. He also said IRS employees should prepare for unpaid leaves and reduced hours.
The cutbacks, Koskinen said, could mean that about $2 billion in tax revenue will go uncollected.
Oh. So, instead of actually reducing deficits by slashing the IRA budget, we’ve actually made things worse by reducing revenues, particularly among corporate tax collecting. But of course, that’s the point, and Republicans are going in for the kill. A critically wounded agency is much easier to further damage.
Because why should government work? We can’t have that.
Violet
Where does that picture of text come from? And why a picture of text?
scav
I mean, if cutting the fat worked once, it must necessarily work in all situations, each and every time, repeatedly and eternally without negative consequences! Lipposuction the fat, then the cheese, then the muscles, then the internal organs and victory! Business Poster sign of approval.
Mike in NC
Genius governor Brownback in Kansas apparently has a plan to do away with state income taxes entirely. Last we heard it wasn’t working out so well.
Here in North Alabama, the Republicans have settled on eliminating income taxes only on corporations, so fuck the serfs who work for them. Their taxes can go up.
Caprice
Didn’t they do the same thing to the Post Office? Stab it half to death, and then complain about blood stains on the white shag rug?
Zandar
@Violet: Something about not linking Fox.
If I had, I’d be getting “Why did you link FOX News?”
Mike J
@Zandar: For the record, I’ll never complain linking to a source, even an evil one.
But Violet is right. Fax is a stupid technology.
heckblazer
Yeah, when your business is having money problems because people keep failing to pay invoices the best cost-cutting measure is obviously to slash accounts receivable.
Violet
@Zandar: Okay. I’d prefer a link so it’s being quoted and attributed accurately. If not that, then a warning it’s a Fox source so no link and then provide the actual text. That way if people want to read the whole article they can highlight the text and search for it.
Thanks for the explanation.
BGinCHI
The stupid, it burns us.
Geeno
@efgoldman: At least his wife wasn’t there with her boyfriend. Or was she?
Console
My agency is dealing with the same shit. The airlines lean republican so they can’t call them out (the airline lobby response during sequestration was the most pathetic shit ever). So they’d rather backdoor privatization of air traffic control rather than tell Congress to do it’s job and not make stupid cuts, shutdowns, or hold budgets hostage.
So we’ll probably get privatized air traffic control, not because it makes sense or because anyone really thought about the pros and cons, but because the GOP plays games with agency funding. You can see the same nonsense with what a republican congress did to the post office.
What drives me nuts though is the short shortsightedness. A government that can’t even fund the things that it’s encoded into law isn’t magically going to have a smooth process with privatized contracts.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@efgoldman:
There’s some comedy show (the Birthday Boys?) on IFC that did a parody of those to basically show they’re kind of turning into “Jackass” — how can we do this surprise to make it as humiliating as possible?
Caprice
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Passive-aggressive patriotism!
srv
I personally saw a multi-hundred million revenue program stalled for years waiting for funding. Congress would not appropriate funds after a single department did it by hand caught $70M underreported in one region. That was in the 80’s, when a million was real money.
@Console: Wait till they take the first officer out of the cockpit.
http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/nasa-advances-single-pilot-operations-concepts
Davis X. Machina
@srv: No point in half measures. What with advances in drone technology, and driverless vehicles, get rid of the pilot too.
Have some bod in an industrial park in Dothan, Alabama fly the thing with a joystick for $12.90 an hour, ten hour shifts.
The potential savings are mind-boggling.
BubbaDave
@Console:
A rough process is one that lets the contractor overbill the government and underdeliver. Contractors donate Republican. Feature, not bug.
Violet
@Davis X. Machina: Good Lord, have a person fly it from a remote location? Why pay for that? Just program a computer to fly the plane. Set it and forget it.
weaselone
@Console: @Console:
The goal isn’t to have anything run smoothly, it’s to channel money into/keep money in the pockets of the big money donors. If the Republicans were actually serious about lowering taxes, they would actually increase IRS funding as each additional dollar the IRS has for lawyers and auditing and enforcement yields multiple dollars in additional revenue courtesy of increased compliance and penalties collected.
Instead they cut it so the IRS can’t go after the big evaders and they allow what amounts to private tax collectors to collect owed taxes from the little guys in return for a percentage skimmed off the top. It’s actually less efficient and more expensive than simply having additional lawyers and other employees on the IRS payroll, but the percentages the private firms take don’t show up as part of the IRS’ budget which a double score as it understates the actual cost of collecting the revenue and obscures all the tax money being directly pocketed by private entities.
batgirl
It’s win, win for the Republicans. They get to undermine government, while government (read Democratic Party) is blamed.
I work for a public library and we always stock forms and instructions for the public from the IRS. We were informed by the IRS about a week ago that we will only be receiving the different 1040 forms and one copy of instructions for reference, nothing else. The people who rely on us for tax forms are mostly elderly and computer illiterate. They walk away from the desk screaming about the government.
I keep telling the library customers when they ask why we aren’t receiving forms this year that the Republicans have decimated the IRS budget.
You can still order paper forms/instructions online so I’ve been placing the requests for some of our patrons. I really hope they arrive as the IRS promises, within 8-15 days.
batgirl
@Console:
The government has already contracted out free online tax prep & filing for the elderly and low-income. It is a absolute mess of confusion for the library customers who try to file online. I’m sure the private tax prep companies make a very pretty penny as well.
In my state, you can file directly through the State Revenue website. It is actually quite easy.
I was reading somewhere that for the vast majority of filers, the process is so simple and the federal government already has all the information, that it would be easy for the government to computerize and simplify the process for most filers. The private tax companies pay mucho bucks to make sure that doesn’t happen.
I can’t figure out why the people who claim don’t trust government, somehow trust government enough to hand out huge sums of tax payer money to private companies.
batgirl
@efgoldman: We charge for all printing at the library. Everyone once and awhile when I’m printing out government applications (especially for government benefits for the elderly and low-income) I just don’t charge. My director probably wouldn’t like that.
Unfortunately, we can’t afford to print out tax forms and instructions for free for everyone. I hate this. I hate having to charge the public for government tax forms. It just doesn’t seem right. Hence, I’m offering to order the forms & instructions online.
srv
@efgoldman: https://remoteflight.net/remote-flight-autopilot
Woodrowfan
My university privatized its copying service. Oops, somehow we ran through a year’s worth of copying budget in one semester? Why> It’s not like we’re copying more. What could the difference be? Oh yeah, now a company has to make a profit off of us, where before it was university employees who did the work.
Baud
@batgirl:
Those are the same people who got mad at Obama because the Republicans shut down the government. They are permanently Republican and unreachable.
Brendan in Charlotte
@Violet: The Ron Popeil method!
OzarkHillbilly
Well, if you can’t bomb them, what’s the worry?
Mike J
@efgoldman:
The most difficult thing about teaching sailing (particularly in the PNW) is teaching people how to pronounce things the traditional way. forecastle should sound more (but not exactly) like foxhole than fore castle. Focsall.
I do tell people I’m ok with “Ready to tack?” “Tacking” instead of the more traditional “Ready about?” “Hard alee”, but I want them to know what it means since I’ll probably use the old school.
Mike in NC
@Mike J: On my first ship I was undergoing training as Officer of the Deck (Inport). The E-6 petty officer who was showing me the ropes one day pointed out the valves on the quarterdeck for the “potable water” system. He said, “I guess they call it potable water because they can move it around the ship”. I just bit my tongue.
Tommy
@batgirl: What you do might seem like a “small” thing but I think it is really, really cool. As I am sure you know more than myself, a library should be a resource to the community it serves in every way possible.
With that said I am a nerd of a pretty high order. I like me my computers (two desktops and laptop), tablet, and smartphone, but I also have this thing for you know, physical/printed books. Got about 1,000 of them in my house.
Also, since I work out of my house and live in a pretty rural area, I don’t have what large metro areas have, what could be called a co-op where you pay a month fee and have access to basically a remote office to use.
So to get out of my office I go to my local liberal to work for a day/half day about once a week, which happens to be the oldest library in the state of Illinois (in continuous use). It is in a town of 30,000 people so it isn’t huge, but it is a beautiful place.
When I started going there I was surprised by a number of things:
1. It was often crowded, and yes people still check out books.
2. The 30 or so computers they have are ALWAYS in use my younger people to elder people and everything in between. It is hard for me to understand this, since I use a computer to make my living and am on or near one almost every second of the day, but clearly many individuals don’t have either a computer at home and/or an Internet connection.
3. About 1/4 of the place is geared towards kids. Not only books, but toys. Other then later in the evening there are ALWAYS kids there with their parents. Makes me VERY happy to see. Very happy.
Oh and I guess I should end with saying you go girl. Print those darn forms and don’t charge people if you can get away with it. Heck send me some info off this forum and I’ll send you some darn toner you can use!
Tommy
@efgoldman: That may very well be the case :).
Mike in NC
@efgoldman: A Chief Warrant Officer in the Army is properly addressed as “Chief”. A Chief Warrant Officer in the Navy is never addressed as “Chief” but as either simply “Mister” or by his/her specialty (Gunner, Boats, Doc, etc.).
PurpleGirl
@Tommy: Would the library building you refer to be one of the ones built by Andrew Carnegie? I don’t if they reinstalled it after the renovation but the museum in the former Carnegie mansion once had pictures of various library building he built in a basement hallway. The library in Elmhurst was a Carnegie building but it was torn down last year and replaced with a larger, new building. I was really pissed that they did that because I really liked the old Carnegie buildings.
Mike G
The major feature of the IRS during the Bush years was a deliberate emphasis away from auditing businesses and the wealthy in favor of going after low-income people for earned income tax credits and other penny-ante stuff. This had the dual purpose of letting their donors get away with tax evasion and bullying the poor, two of Republicans’ favorite things to do.
So many government functions got politicized, corrupted and deliberately hobbled in the gross maladministration that characterized the Lazy Chimp’s regime.
Mike J
@Mike in NC: You call CPOs (E 7,8, or 9) chief. Senior or master chief for 8 or 9.
Tommy
@PurpleGirl: Nope. Predates him by many years:
Even to this day I have to explain where I live my last name is Young with a “Y” not Jung with a “J.” The German’s footprint here is old and deep. And I should note how they first got here in the 1820s/30s is a wonderful story in and of itself.
Another Holocene Human
This is the most depressing thread on BJ since the election. Not y’all’s fault, it’s reality that sucks.
divF
@Mike J: Army has (or had) a formal address and informal address for senior NCOs (E-7-E-9). Sergeant (all), Master Sergeant (less usual for E-8), Sergeant Major (usual for E-9). Informally, Sarge (all), Top (for E-8s in command positions, such as company First Sergeants). Don’t know about E-9s, my father retired as an E-8.
When Madame divF first met my father, she asked him what he wanted to be called. since I’m named after him, first names were out, and Mr. seemed too formal for both of them. He finally said “call me what I’ve been called the longest – Sarge”.
ETA: “Don’t call me sir, I work for a living!”
CTVoter
We’re heading into Hunger Games territory quicker than we are into peak wing-nut territory.
Scott Alloway
@divF: Smiling at that.
Ruckus
@divF:
When people call me sir my answer, when I’m feeling smartassish is “Dad was sir, my name is Ruckus.” Of course the funny part is that my dad and I called each other sir, me from a very young age and he from when I got out of the navy.
Gian
@Tommy:
for your “how crazy are the modern GOP” trivia
some famous robber barron by the name of Carnegie funded a ton of libraries because he thought everyone should have a chance to learn.
He was also a huge fan of the estate tax, from a right wing angle, basically, if your kids can’t work f-em
burnspbesq
John Koskinen is, by far, the best manager ever to head the IRS. If he says the agency doesn’t have enough resources to carry out all of its missions without prioritizing, believe it.
JDM
BTW, the “$3,000/night suite” claim sounded like something worth checking out, so I Googled. This is referring to an IRS conference in 2010, where several of the top brass stayed in suites that have a rack price of $1,500/night. So already a Fox News lie, but it’s even more of a lie than that, because the IRS negotiated all the rooms, including the suite upgrades, down to $135/night. So he’s only off by more than 22 times. The writer quoted in the post, and making that claim, BTW, is the same guy whose contributions to the Kansas City Star are no longer welcome because they caught him lying (about different stuff) and making them look stupid. (http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-a-newspaper-factchecks-20140805-column.html)