Its called reducing payroll. It saves money. In this case lots of money. IRS like all government departments have a redundancy that people in the private sector would not tolerate.
The guy who paid the largest single tax bill in the history of the US?
The IRS took nearly a year to send me my 2022 tax refund (after I paid six figures in taxes). We need better systems and efficiency
I’m not sure if we need more people in the IRS, but more people alone will not solve the problem.
Dems complain abt irs losing agents bc it may result in lost revenue but get pissed when Elon finds massive fraud and waste of our tax money. # [÷& libs
100% True. As for me, I love it when they complain as their lives will be turned upside down, they'll be upset and never learn how to live life for the next 4 years due to their TDS!
The reason you couldn't communicate with the IRS is that the sequester and then the pandemic starved the IRS and other absolutely crucial agencies of the money and staffing needed to fulfill essential needs. All that will get far worse with DOGE's cuts, intended to punish an agency that was trying to make Trump actually pay his taxes and to prevent them from enforcing legislated tax rates on billionaires like the two taking apart the foundation of the wealthiest large country on earth.
What you can do to save the people of this country a lot of money and trouble is to have 95% of income taxes calculated automatically by the IRS, like tax agencies do in almost every other country on earth. Then you devote the IRS to collecting from the rich in a society where all the gains in wealth have gone to the top 1% since 1980.
Every IRS agent MAKES the government money. We are still in the part of the curve where they make hundreds of times more money for the government than we pay them. We should keep hiring IRS agents until they are no longer the most profitable investment. Right now they are and it's not even close. We should also invest in scientific research, including basic science, as that has huge returns as well. We are trying to get rich right?
Because the idiots in charge are only looking at the expense side and also don't understand what anyone actually does.
Dems complain abt irs losing agents bc it may result in lost revenue but get pissed when Elon finds massive fraud and waste of our tax money. # [÷& libs
Government spending is up significantly since Trump took over. DOGE has found “MASSIVE fraud”, but no one has been prosecuted. Weird!
Dems complain abt irs losing agents bc it may result in lost revenue but get pissed when Elon finds massive fraud and waste of our tax money. # [÷& libs
Government spending is up significantly since Trump took over. DOGE has found “MASSIVE fraud”, but no one has been prosecuted. Weird!
I wish I was as gullible as you.
Totally false liberal fake news lies exaggerations and pipedreams all over a lost election that they were sure they'd win. Cry harder old man.
Like most of the other government agencies that are being downsized, the IRS needs a massive restructuring. Technology updates could save time and eliminate the need for many personnel. Here is my first hand experience of dealing with the IRS.
My 80-year-old mother-in-law was fined by the IRS for not paying enough income taxes in an old tax return and annual penalties adding to the underpayment raised the total amount due to over $13,000. After only a little research on my part, I discovered that someone had stolen her DECEASED husband's ID and had filed a tax return in another state for a tax refund. I literally figured this out in one day.
Now, this next part is unbelievable. I could not CALL the IRS to explain. I had to reply in writing or... wait for it... by fax! Fax machine! I hadn't owned a fax machine in 10 years! Worse, the IRS letter told me that I must reply within 30 days and required that I wait 30 days before following up on my initial letter/fax.
I sent them the husband's obituary in the local paper, his official death certificate, proof of residence in Florida when the bogus tax return was filed in California... and waited. I figured that was overkill, the IRS would have to be complete idiots not to see that this was identity theft, but better to send too much instead of not enough, right?
A couple of months later, the IRS requested bank statements. I sent them. This went back and forth for months with the IRS requesting more information. Often the requests asked for information that I had already sent them!
Finally, in frustration, I sent the IRA a mound of paper with over 200 pages of bank statements, proof of residences, proof that someone else lived at the out of state address when the bogus return was filed, and waited. A few months later, the case was dropped.
THIS PROCESS TOOK OVER TWO YEARS!
Contrary experiences.
First, I had booked a Spanish fellow to be the keynote at a conference. We wanted to make sure he did not have to file US taxes and such. Tried on the website. Finally got an email address and was told to come to the local IRS office with the speaker.
We showed up (now it was a bit of a pain to go). Waited not very long. Agent gives us the necessary forms that the speaker could fill out on the spot. I had to get our CFO to complete a form and fax it in (fax machines were common then). Speaker finished the form in five minutes. Agent gave him a copy signed the agent as was told "not to lose it". I got the form faxed in the next day. He was never taxed (he would have had to file to get a refund of the full amount withheld so the government was not out anything).
Next, I thought I had messed up my daughter's taxes. Called. Was on the line for a bit <30 minutes. Given the option for a call back. Did it. Got called back. The woman pulled up everything (we had to get my daughter on the line to ok sharing info with me). After that she went through the filing and found everything was ok. She was incredibly helpful.
Congress could simplify the tax code. There are so many exemptions and credits and "loopholes" that have created a whole industry of gaming the system. Make it simpler and compliance increases and ways to skirt taxes goes down.
Congress could simplify the tax code. There are so many exemptions and credits and "loopholes" that have created a whole industry of gaming the system. Make it simpler and compliance increases and ways to skirt taxes goes down.
There are no "loopholes". There are Congressionally legislated tax laws that taxpayers comply with.
Same thing happened to me. IRS found they owed me around $1000 for last tax year. A couple years ago they found I owed like $80 or something though. Overall, the IRS has made me money (I still have taxes withdrawn from my paycheck whether IRS exists or not) though.
A lack of IRS will save the rich money though because they will use the lack of accountability to engage in fraud and not pay taxes they owe.
Even when they grabbed that $80, they paid the agent who did it more for their trouble.
I don't mind if the IRS doesn't fix mistakes on my behalf, that's my responsibility. Bureaucracy costs a ton to operate, and makes up reasons to cost a ton. It's just like the movie Brazil.
Tax withholding wouldn't be possible without the IRS, employers have to file that. File this, file that, it's all a massive file cabinet
Congress could simplify the tax code. There are so many exemptions and credits and "loopholes" that have created a whole industry of gaming the system. Make it simpler and compliance increases and ways to skirt taxes goes down.
There are no "loopholes". There are Congressionally legislated tax laws that taxpayers comply with.
A loophole is an unintended gap in the law. It is a means of subverting the intent of the law while not contravening the law itself. It is: IRS hates this one weird trick to avoid paying a tax.
Every IRS agent MAKES the government money. We are still in the part of the curve where they make hundreds of times more money for the government than we pay them. We should keep hiring IRS agents until they are no longer the most profitable investment. Right now they are and it's not even close. We should also invest in scientific research, including basic science, as that has huge returns as well. We are trying to get rich right?
The IRS has lots of different jobs.. including mail clerks, customer service ( like identity theft), etc.. not all of these jobs produce money for the government
Biden Hired 86,000 Armed IRS agents "to go after people making more than $450.000 per year". Some people believed him. He likely wanted to go after any political opponent Marxist style. The intent was to take peoples money and confiscate peoples assets after the insane environmental taxes and electric car mandates kicked in.
Trump needs external collectors to get money from the tariffs.
He has discussed ending income tax for people making less than 150,000 reducing the need for IRS agents.
The IRS is totally incompetent and tax code is too complicated and has too many loopholes.
The IRS sent me a letter telling me that I hadn't paid my taxes several years earlier and sent me a bill and a threatening letter. We paid our taxes that year and had receipts for a check deposited by IRS for the exact amount in question.
We spent several hours attempting to contact the IRS and got the run around and transferred from department to department. 30 minute wait each time and constantly hung up on when transferring because apparently the IRS isn't smart enough to push the correct button when transferring someone. Each department claimed that we needed to talk to another department and transferred us back to the department we were previously talking to.
After a few weeks, we contacted our bank. Our bank took over and promised to resolve the problem.
Another time, the IRS sent us a tax refund from a previous year. We had already deposited our refund from that year for the same amount.
It is a danger to our democracy to have this elite force disbanded. Navy SEALs will never sniff excellence of this caliber. If a Portland-based Mexican food truck errs when calculating their taxable sales, they will be quaking in their Alphaflys at what this group of highly specialized warriors will do to hold them accountable.
I didn't read this whole thread but I am a government contractor (IT) and currently on an IRS contract. I can tell you by firsthand accounts the IRS has WAY too many employees. They also attempted to onboard like 10k new employees right before the Biden administration ended. The IRS has thousands of employees who just sit home doing nothing while they go through the 6-9 month vetting process before they get their IRS equipment and credentials. Then they do training on their own, which most is unsupervised and at your own pace, and not uncommon to have employees who have been employed for over a year before they actually start any work. I don't have a number, but the amount of remote employees they had before they were called back into offices recently was absolutely ridiculous. Most IRS Federal buildings looked like ghost towns when I traveled to them with only a few employees occupying the buildings on a consistent basis.
I'm not saying there aren't employees doing their job and are vital to the IRS because there are. But, I will tell you there is a good portion of the 100,000 employees the IRS has are not needed whatsoever. Not to mention the IRS outsources a ton of it's work to contractors in and outside of the U.S.