Posted on 01/17/2015 6:35:09 PM PST by SeekAndFind
As Stephen Moore at Fox News reports, the IRS has some big changes planned for for you in 2015. They’re finally going to eliminate all the scandals and abuse and become more accountable to the public! Hurrah!
No… I was just kidding. They’re going to be delivering even worse service than they already provide.
Complaining about belt tightening budget cuts, this week IRS Commissioner John Koskinen lectured: “People who file paper tax returns could wait an extra week—or possibly longer—to see their refund. Taxpayers with errors or questions on their returns that require additional manual review will also face delays.” It says it will cut enforcement efforts to root out identity theft.
Another IRS official went even further, suggesting wait times of at least half an hour to get through on the 1-800 help line. She warned that people who call in might want to bring some knitting, and that by the time you get through to a live human being, “you might be able to knit a sock.” And they call this a “help” line!
Moore does a fine job of explaining the staggering level of dysfunction here by comparing the IRS to any private industry business in the United States. If you consistently delivered poor quality of services and horrible customer support, and then went out to publicly announce that you were scaling back so things would be getting even worse, you would quickly find yourself in bankruptcy court and being driven out of the market space by your competitors. (Unless, of course, you happen to be Comcast or Time Warner.) This is because the IRS has a government mandated, iron clad, unassailable monopoly on the “market” in question. (Again, see Comcast / Time Warner, or nearly so.)
As a possible remedy, Moore suggests that the public hold the IRS accountable and demand the firing of Mr. Kostiken. Those are actually two separate tasks, and I would suggest that each is equally futile and/or impossible. If the endless Lois Lerner hearings proved anything to us, it’s that Congress is seemingly incapable of anything beyond public displays of frustration and bluster when it comes to the Internal Revenue Service. The scandals which “rocked” the agency over the last few years were of a nature which the reasonable observer could assume would have resulted in massive changes and the imprisonment of many principal actors. But for all the sound and fury which occupied the media for months and years on end, when all was said and done the main culprit was “punished” by heading off to a comfy retirement and the agency remained essentially unchanged. (At least until now, when it will get even worse.)
The IRS is not accountable because they mostly only answer to the White House, and if the Administration doesn’t pay grievances against the agency anything more than lip service, little can be done. You can’t just stop collecting taxes (as much as many of you will hate to hear me say it) or else the few necessary things the federal government does will cease to function. And you can’t make the system work any better for the customers without massive restructuring.
Say… didn’t I hear a bunch of candidates talking about systemic tax reform during the 2014 election cycle? And in 2012? And 2010? And for as long as some of our younger readers can even remember? I wonder what ever happened to that. Again.
Once we get a version of a flat tax, we can say goodbye to about 90% of those assclowns.
The Politicians would never go for it ,so many depend of Free Money
OK, so the People need to stop dealing with the IRS ie don’t pay
That is not true!
Flat Tax is still an income tax, and you will be subject to audits just as you are today.
I can, and FRequently do. make the case that under a Flat Tax, the IRS will become even nastier and more intrusive, because Flat Tax will not require supporting documents as does the present income tax.
HOWEVER, The FairTax WILL get rid of about 90% of these assclowns! The ones left (who will NOT be working for an IRS as it will be disestablished within two years of FairTax implementation) will be overseeing the FairTax collected by the states.
Let me be very clear about this element of the FairTax: There will be no audits of private individuals under FairTax! Only retail businesses will be subject to audits.
States will collect the FairTax FRom retailers and forward the funds to the Fed. The Federal role will be to monitor states, not individuals!
For more information, please go to https://www.fairtax.org
The IRS just keeps on making the case for it to be abolished, doesn’t it?
RE: Ten percent is good enough for our Lord, why not the government?
Herman Cain also said that when he proposed his 9-9-9 plan.
The IRS is now the political retribution/reward arm of the tyrant Barrack Hussein Obama, who also uses it to define politically correct speech.You speak out effectively as a conservative...you get audited as a slap down.
If you happen to be critical of Obama like Dr.Ben Carson,
then you are audited 3 times or even more.
If you are an Obama confident like race jockey shake down artist Al Sharpton, you can owe 2 million dollars in back taxes and not go to jail or even be harassed.
The IRS has outlived its usefulness and now persecutes the People. It should be destroyed as an institution.
I’m with you. The IRS owes me and I have made multiple attempts to collect WHAT THEY OWE ME. Now they are threatening me with auditing if I don’t quit bothering them.
I.R.S. - Internal Revenue for Socialists
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
GESTAPO of socialists enforcing debt slavery on us, our children, our grandchildren.
Socialism Is Legal Plunder - Bastiat (see above link for plunder)
Why isn’t the pig/skank Lois Lerner in prison?
CONgre$$?
6. But the grand nostrum will be a public debt…
7. It must not be forgotten that the members of the legislative body are to have a deep stake in the game.
10. “Divide and govern”
11. As soon as sufficient progress in the intended change shall have been made, and the public mind duly prepared according to the rules already laid down, it will be proper to venture on another and a bolder step toward a removal of the constitutional landmarks.
RULES FOR RADICALS? NO, “Rules for Changing a Limited Republican Government into an Unlimited Hereditary One”
1784-1796
Philip Freneau
Can you imagine a Republican presidential candidate promising to eliminate the IRS?
Sure. Ted Cruz already has.
Let’s just hope the IRS keeps on its current trajectory to abolishment...and here’s to Ted Cruz for keeping the pressure on.
The flat tax is the same BS as we have now. The only real freedom from the IRS as individuals is the fair tax.
We will never again be a TRULY free people for so long as we continue to abide the Marxist income tax and the IRS!!!
Well this guy could be righter than he knows. This past week David Perdue and Johnny Isakson co-sponsored and dropped the Fair Tax bill in the hopper at the Senate. I was frankly shocked especially that Isakson would get involved. He is the quintessential Chamber of Commerce RINO. So I think something must be up. Maybe they can’t raise enough money to pay for everything and now they realize the only way is through an ad valorum tax.
“The IRS just keeps on making the case for it to be abolished, doesn’t it?”
The IRS has now been weaponized! We must rid ourselves of it if we are ever again to be a truly FREE people!
You are so right, Bigun!
FairTax is about FReedom!
Income tax is about slavery!
I vote FREEDOM!
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