Most of you know that I routinely interface with the IRS (Internal Revenue Service). That effort is taxing my clients double or triple- because the IRS is keeping me on hold for 20, 30, 40, and 60 minutes routinely. Thankfully, there is a purported dedicated line for tax professionals, but even that outlet is being decimated. So, those waits ensue- and my clients are billed unnecessarily. Moreover, the IRS was never responsible for the advice they gave taxpayers over the phone- but now the quality of this advice is worse than ever.
You know it’s bad when corporations decide that budgets must be cut (so the executives can get credit for more profits- and obtain higher salaries and benefits)- and they demand their employees provide the same or greater production with fewer and fewer people. But, when the IRS does that, there are significant problems. Even the GAO (Government Accountability Office) is now declaring that the IRS has underwent significant staffing declines and yields uneven performance.
One of the primary reasons for this is that the Congress has cut more than $ 900 million in the IRS’ budget since 2010. Why? Because while they can’t repeal Obamacare, they hope to starve it of management and oversight. Who is responsible for part of the law’s oversight? The IRS; hence, the budget decimation.
That is an insane proposition. (Don’t get me started on what I think of many of those folks who populate the people’s house- Congress- three days a week. What? You thought they worked full time for those salaries???) The IRS is responsible for collecting the nation’s taxes. If they don’t do at least routine policing of the submissions, cheating will increase and the nation’s operating capital will dwindle. (Yes, one can save money by not feeding one’s animals, but that doesn’t make them healthy or capable of obtaining the best price at sale!)
You know that sequester? The budget cut that never would have occurred (or so our elected representative told their constituents)? Well, concurrent with that sequester the IRS didn’t collect $ 2 billion. Hmm. Someone “saved” the country $ 500 million- and that savings cost the country 4X that amount. Wow- what a good idea that turned out to be!
Not necessarily related, but since 2010 and the budget axe to the IRS, the collections that the IRS obtains from enforcing the laws are down almost $ 4.5 billion. That’s not collections- that is from catching folks cheating, and having sufficient personnel to collect the money owed the US treasury. Tell me again that cutting the IRS operational funds is a great idea.
Or, besides the interminable holds (by the way, who chooses that G-d awful music????), there were some 15 million phone calls from taxpayers that NEVER were answered last year (GAO audit figures). By the way, those are 1/3 of all calls to the IRS, where folks hang up because they can’t keep waiting to reach someone. (Or, as we have seen [and consider it the more likely scenario], the IRS agent is so overworked s/he “accidentally” hangs up on the person, instead of picking up- which means another interminable wait at the back of the queue when one calls back in.)
The IRS claims that folks only wait 14 minutes to reach a representative. Really? Our phones are computer monitored and I just checked. Our average call to the IRS clocked more than 40 minutes. Since we generally speak to a representative for 9 minutes or less, we waited 30 minutes to reach someone. And, I don’t think the IRS deliberately makes us wait more than someone else.
Why don’t we just drop the word “Service” from the IRS’ name?
