As of September 2010, the tax agency had 80,606 items in storage, of which 28% — or 22,486 items — had been there for at least a year and a half without being used or moved, according to [a TIGTA] report. Those items took up 34,194 square feet of warehouse space costing about $862,000 in rent annually. [WSJ]
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Maybe Everyone’s Expectations of the IRS Are Too High
The mother of all auditors, the Government Accountability Office, had heard some complaints that maybe the IRS wasn’t doing such a bang-up job on the whole Phase two.
After snooping around, the GAO issued a new report that explained that the IRS needs to work on explaining just what it is they do an why they do it.
Web CPA:
The IRS has no documented objectives for the notice phase and no performance measures to indicate how well the phase is performing in resolving debt cases or achieving other desired results…
…However, in almost all cases, for the five business rules the IRS identified as affecting the most taxpayers, the IRS did not have information on the date the rules were established, the rationale for the rule, or data supporting the rationale…
…IRS collection officials also lacked documentation describing the business rules and how they operate. Further, even though IRS officials estimated that the business rules had been established for years, IRS had documentation for an evaluation of only one of the five business rules.
Let’s recap:
• “…no documented objectives…”
• “…did not have information on the date the rules were established, the rationale for the rule, or data supporting the rationale…”
• “…lacked documentation describing the business rules and how they operate.”
• “…documentation for an evaluation of only one of the five business rules.”
Apparently this is one of those cases where the Service says, “Trust us, we have a plan. But don’t ask us to explain it, we wouldn’t want to bore you. Oh, and don’t ask us how well it’s working. We don’t get too hung up on statistics or success rate.”
We’re just talking about tax dollars after all.
IRS Has Trouble Tracking Debt Collection Notices [Web CPA]
Some IRS Employees Living by the Motto ‘Do as I Say, Not as I Do’
There’s no shame in asking for help, IRS employees, if that’s what this is about. Don’t forget that the Commish isn’t too proud to ask for help.
In 2008, the year for which most recent data was available, IRS computer programs flagged compliance issues for more than 8,000 of its 109,469 employees and ultimately determined that almost 2.8% had not complied with the law. But those monitoring systems missed 133 additional employees who were potentially not compliant with tax law over a two-year period, according to the audit. The employees were flagged for potentially filing their tax returns late, paying their taxes late, not reporting all of their income and at least one example of a criminal investigation with an additional tax assessment.
Treasury Report: IRS Must Beef Up Oversight Of Its Own Employees [Dow Jones]
The Distaste for IRS’ Tax Preparer Regulations Has Reached Its Apex
The only question is, why did it took take so long? A nonprofit group plans […]