The IRS is no joke
Poll: What is the most pressing problem facing U.S.?
By Ken Tingley
You don’t need a poll to understand where the Internal Revenue Services stands in the eyes of Americans. Just check with the folks at jokes4us.com.
Here are a few of their greatest hits. Insert your own laugh track:
- The Post Office just recalled their newest stamps because they had pictures of IRS agents on them and people couldn’t figure out which side to spit on.
-The only difference between an IRS agent and a carp is that one is a bottom-feeding, scum sucker and the other is a fish.
- If a lawyer and an IRS agent were both drowning, and you could only save one of them, would you go to lunch or read the newspaper?
I could go on because there are a million of them.
You get the idea.
Nobody is a fan of the tax man.
Republicans in the House of Representatives went after the easy pickings in their first week in the majority by passing legislation to cut funding to the IRS and give a pass to people cheating on their taxes.
The Inflation Reduction Act that was passed into law last year calls for $45 billion for enforcement of the tax codes. They’ve told you an army of IRS agents are coming to audit you and me. But you need to read the fine print.
What the Inflation Reduction Act actually does with that extra IRS funding is to close the “tax gap” between what Americans owe on their taxes and what they actually pay. the enforcement is designed to catch people who are cheating on their taxes and increase revenues.
So if you cheat on your taxes, you probably cheered loudly for the Republicans this week.
If you pay your fair share, you may be left scratching your head.
We caught a glimpse of the problem when the results of President’s Trump’s tax returns were released. He didn’t pay much, but what is even more stunning is that the IRS did not have the people to scrutinize the complicated tax returns of the rich. It wasn’t able to even complete the required legal audits for when Trump was president.
The goal of the Inflation Reduction Act was to add tax revenues from that are owed the U.S. Government.
Five years ago the journalists at ProPublica looked closely at the understaffing at the IRS and found rich folks benefit the most from less staffing.
“Corporations and the wealthy are the biggest beneficiaries of the IRS’ decay,” ProPublica concluded. “Most Americans’ interaction with the IRS is largely automated. But it takes specialized, well-trained personnel to audit a business or a billionaire or to unravel a tax scheme — and those employees are leaving in droves and taking their expertise with them. For the country’s largest corporations, the danger of being hit with a billion-dollar tax bill has greatly diminished. For the rich, who research shows evade taxes the most, the IRS has become less and less of a force to be feared.”
The House Republicans voted to give rich people and corporations a pass.
There has been a 17 percent reduction in IRS workforce since 2010 and that has not led to good service.
The agency still has not processed some 8 million income tax returns from 2021. And only 11 percent of phone calls were returned last year.
Its workforce is also aging and it estimates it will lose 50,000 of its 80,000 workers over the next five years. And you think you wait a long time for your refund now.
If you’ve got a high school student, you may want to steer them toward an IRS career where an experienced agent can make upwards of $100,000.
If they have a thick skin.
Thankfully, the Republicans have no chance to pass their new measure because they don’t have the votes in the Senate.
That’s a good thing.
The thing you need to remember the most. What the IRS does is collect the monies it takes to run our country and make it a better place.
And that is no joke.
GOP transparency
Rep. Elise Stefanik has repeatedly promised transparency from the House Republicans on social media this week.
But one Republican saw it differently.
“Some sort of deal was hashed out for the majority of the 20 to vote for McCarthy for speaker, but this deal was crafted in private, behind closed doors,” Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina wrote in a letter to her constituents on Monday. “We can’t think of anything more ‘swampy’ than a member of Congress who tells the American people they’re holding up the speaker vote because they’re ‘fighting’ the ‘swamp’ only to broker some back-room deal, hidden away from the American people.”
And that was from a fellow Republican.
Social Security
Republicans have been talking about some necessary changes for Social Security that probably need to be made. There is a chance they will increase the eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare while changing the benefit formula for those 54 and younger.
As long as you are older than 54, nothing will change. But if you are 54 and under, you might not be able to retired as soon as you thought.
Luncheon scheduled
I will be speaking to the Adirondack chapter of the American Association of University Women lunch on Saturday at Glens Falls Country Club.
Wednesday is the final day to RSVP to aauw.adirondackny@gmail.com
I have been a tax preparer for over 20 years. Part of the time for a national chain and for the past 5 years for a CPA. I have had people walk away from both places because we wouldn’t give them write offs without documentation. They will find unscrupulous preparers who will just throw numbers on the return to reduce their taxes. The IRS is needed not only to catch tax cheats but also bad preparers.
Another win for the rich. Thank you Republicans. Not only do they avoid paying taxes (which we pay for them) but they avoid getting caught because their taxes are so complicated, it takes more people to analyze the legality of their submissions.It's so much quicker and simpler to take a middle class uncomplicated tax return and get someone on their silly little mistakes or lack of receipts. The return on employing more agents would have far outweighed the fears that they were coming to get you that the Republicans put out there. That is the real problem. It would prevent the professional cheaters from cheating and that doesn't go over well with the rich or the politicians they support.