Congressional [Dis]service
Irrational fear and hatred is usually dangerous. That is what has beset the IRS, and the dangers are not being fully appreciated. It's a little lengthy, but you should read this article from Forbes and MSN.
The 100-year anniversary of the birth of the federal income tax is around a half-decade away. The terribly unpopular creation is incredibly important. The government cannot do anything without money. Do you like your car? Chances are you'd not have one if the government didn't have an income tax. That is because the cost of paving roadways across the nation was born majorly on the funds collected through federal taxes. The strength of our military is due to the fact there is a system of taxes that can be drawn on to pay for its personnel and equipment.
Most people don't like the IRS, the body that was created to facilitate the collection of taxes. That is because most people don't like taxes. After all, it takes money directly out of your paycheck and sometimes when that April deadline comes down each year you're told you still have to fork over more.
Nevertheless it is a system that we need. Taxes aren't going to go away unless we decide as a nation that we don't need to pay for anything at all anymore. In the meantime, we should at least be sure that the organization functions properly.
Now, I've noted before in past posts that the IRS has problems. As the article I referenced pointed out, however, it is not some imaginative malfeasance seeking to disadvantage certain political parties. It isn't even entirely the stupid expenditures on bonuses and employee retreats. These last two examples do, however, show an organization that has shot itself in the foot at times. Unfortunately, even if they do everything right, they'll only get more flack than praise.
The IRS is broke. Well, not technically "broke" as we seem to regard government nowadays. You see, for most people broke means you don't have enough money to do the things you need to do, like pay your bills, buy food, or buy gas to get to work. For some reason when we look at government organizations and their ability to do their job we don't see "broke" the same way; they're not broke until they have not a red cent to their coffers, regardless of if that money they do have is enough to do their job.
Right now, the IRS doesn't have enough money to do its job. And on top of that they've been given more work to do. That would be like barely having enough money to pay for gas to get to work each week, and then your boss telling you that you have no choice but to work at a facility further from home, and take a pay cut.
But no one cares, at least the vast majority don't seem to care. And that's because we as a nation don't like the IRS or paying taxes. So, the reaction most have when hearing about the IRS needing more money, undoubtedly the majority who will read this post, shrug their shoulders and say "yeah right, those greedy so-and-so's". Most people simply don't care. They still think that the IRS targeted conservative groups out of political retribution, despite the evidence showing that the incident was all about corralling like applications that they were legally required to review and targeted more liberal groups than conservatives.
The IRS being underfunded means it's understaffed. Staffing is always one of the first things to get hit when the budget axe comes down; most people who've ever worked anywhere know this. When the staffing starts dropping off and the responsibilities don't, you start getting mistakes and backlogs. For the IRS this means not catching crooks who unfairly break the rules to get away with not paying what they owe - inherently unfair to rest of us who do pay what we owe even if we don't like taxes much either - and not being able to help those who do need to talk to them. This will make the IRS look even worse in the years to come. That ire will cause more to object to giving them money to do their jobs, causing a spiraling effect.
But it's more than that. Part of the calculation of tax rates goes into accounting for what money will not be collected. Whether it is by intentional obfuscation by individuals evading taxes, people lying on their tax returns, or honest mistakes, there are billions of dollars a year not collected by the IRS. In part the higher rates are meant to offset this percentage of people who don't pay what they owe. If tax receipts are too light the government has two options - raise taxes or cut programs, that's the budget process. As you've seen over the last several years, neither option is particularly popular.
When you consider the slashing of the IRS budget is a part of the cut the federal budget history of the last few years, you end up essentially further hampering the IRS this way. And if you simply add new taxes or tax categories for the IRS to tackle without allowing them the money to hire more people, you're again making the situation worse by piling more work on an already inadequate workforce.
I get it, we the American people hate taxes. But we don't hate the stuff our tax money pays for. So we need to grow up and stop acting like spoiled, petulant, children. We need a tax system. And it needs to work. It not working, us trying to starve it out, only hurts us in the long term. As long as we need a tax system, how about we focus on making sure it works as well as possible. Yes, call out fraud and abuse, but only where it actually exists, not just to give the IRS a black eye. And let's give them the resources to actually do their job the way it should be done.
The 100-year anniversary of the birth of the federal income tax is around a half-decade away. The terribly unpopular creation is incredibly important. The government cannot do anything without money. Do you like your car? Chances are you'd not have one if the government didn't have an income tax. That is because the cost of paving roadways across the nation was born majorly on the funds collected through federal taxes. The strength of our military is due to the fact there is a system of taxes that can be drawn on to pay for its personnel and equipment.
Most people don't like the IRS, the body that was created to facilitate the collection of taxes. That is because most people don't like taxes. After all, it takes money directly out of your paycheck and sometimes when that April deadline comes down each year you're told you still have to fork over more.
Nevertheless it is a system that we need. Taxes aren't going to go away unless we decide as a nation that we don't need to pay for anything at all anymore. In the meantime, we should at least be sure that the organization functions properly.
Now, I've noted before in past posts that the IRS has problems. As the article I referenced pointed out, however, it is not some imaginative malfeasance seeking to disadvantage certain political parties. It isn't even entirely the stupid expenditures on bonuses and employee retreats. These last two examples do, however, show an organization that has shot itself in the foot at times. Unfortunately, even if they do everything right, they'll only get more flack than praise.
The IRS is broke. Well, not technically "broke" as we seem to regard government nowadays. You see, for most people broke means you don't have enough money to do the things you need to do, like pay your bills, buy food, or buy gas to get to work. For some reason when we look at government organizations and their ability to do their job we don't see "broke" the same way; they're not broke until they have not a red cent to their coffers, regardless of if that money they do have is enough to do their job.
Right now, the IRS doesn't have enough money to do its job. And on top of that they've been given more work to do. That would be like barely having enough money to pay for gas to get to work each week, and then your boss telling you that you have no choice but to work at a facility further from home, and take a pay cut.
But no one cares, at least the vast majority don't seem to care. And that's because we as a nation don't like the IRS or paying taxes. So, the reaction most have when hearing about the IRS needing more money, undoubtedly the majority who will read this post, shrug their shoulders and say "yeah right, those greedy so-and-so's". Most people simply don't care. They still think that the IRS targeted conservative groups out of political retribution, despite the evidence showing that the incident was all about corralling like applications that they were legally required to review and targeted more liberal groups than conservatives.
The IRS being underfunded means it's understaffed. Staffing is always one of the first things to get hit when the budget axe comes down; most people who've ever worked anywhere know this. When the staffing starts dropping off and the responsibilities don't, you start getting mistakes and backlogs. For the IRS this means not catching crooks who unfairly break the rules to get away with not paying what they owe - inherently unfair to rest of us who do pay what we owe even if we don't like taxes much either - and not being able to help those who do need to talk to them. This will make the IRS look even worse in the years to come. That ire will cause more to object to giving them money to do their jobs, causing a spiraling effect.
But it's more than that. Part of the calculation of tax rates goes into accounting for what money will not be collected. Whether it is by intentional obfuscation by individuals evading taxes, people lying on their tax returns, or honest mistakes, there are billions of dollars a year not collected by the IRS. In part the higher rates are meant to offset this percentage of people who don't pay what they owe. If tax receipts are too light the government has two options - raise taxes or cut programs, that's the budget process. As you've seen over the last several years, neither option is particularly popular.
When you consider the slashing of the IRS budget is a part of the cut the federal budget history of the last few years, you end up essentially further hampering the IRS this way. And if you simply add new taxes or tax categories for the IRS to tackle without allowing them the money to hire more people, you're again making the situation worse by piling more work on an already inadequate workforce.
I get it, we the American people hate taxes. But we don't hate the stuff our tax money pays for. So we need to grow up and stop acting like spoiled, petulant, children. We need a tax system. And it needs to work. It not working, us trying to starve it out, only hurts us in the long term. As long as we need a tax system, how about we focus on making sure it works as well as possible. Yes, call out fraud and abuse, but only where it actually exists, not just to give the IRS a black eye. And let's give them the resources to actually do their job the way it should be done.
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