When accounting goes unaccounted for
Remember how the military tried to recruit Call of Duty players to be drone pilots? Maybe the IRS can take a page from their book and convince young people there is first-person fun to be had bum-rushing naughty taxpayers’ homes.
A suspicious backpack was found at an IRS office Ocala, Florida yesterday that resulted in the 100 employees being evacuated from the building and also business in the surrounding area. In this day and age of misplaced IRS hating, authorities always approach these situations with caution and swiftly destroyed the pack after viewing the X-rays noting notebooks and “an electronic device with wires.” The contents turned out to be nothing more than someone’s psychology textbook, notebooks and a tape recorder, among other school-y items. This will be the best excuse that psych prof will ever hear. [Ocala]
The IRS has decided to give offshore tax scofflaws almost an extra month to rethink their cheater-cheater pumpkin-eater ways, extending the deadline to October 15th from September 23rd. According to the Service, this will be the absolute, final, drop dead chance for offshore account holders to come forward.
Apparently the IRS means biz-nass as 3,000 account holders have already come forward to declare their offshore income. This is compared to less than the 100 taxpayers that came forward all of last year.
You could safely assume that the public flogging of UBS in front of the entire world helped get the IRS’s point across. So now the extension of the deadline seems to be a friendly reminder that you have ONE LAST CHANCE to play ball.
Plus, the Service must have come to their senses and realized that a tax deadline on the 23rd really doesn’t seem to make a damn bit of sense.
IRS extends tax amnesty deadline to October 15 [Reuters via Tax Prof Blog]
Last year the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration came down pretty hard on volunteer tax preparers, noting that 41% of the returns contained errors. As is the IG’s wont, they scolded the IRS to improve this shameless display by volunteers and made some suggestions to help them suck less.
And it worked! Ninety percent of the tax returns prepared by volunteers were accurate thus earning praise from the IG:
Ninety percent of the 39 tax returns volunteers prepared for TIGTA auditors were prepared correctly, a sharp increase from the 59 percent accuracy rate reported by TIGTA in its 2009 review. TIGTA attributed the improvement to an increase in volunteers’ use of the IRS’s Intake/Interview and Quality Review Sheet (Form 13614-C), improved training, and enhanced oversight. Only 5 percent of the 39 tax returns were prepared without use of the Form 13164-C, versus 33 percent in TIGTA’s 2008 Filing Season review, and 22 percent in its 2009 Filing Season review.
“This report is a positive indication of the good work that the IRS is doing for America’s taxpayers,” stated J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. “I commend the IRS on the progress it has made in helping volunteers accurately fulfill the very important task they assumed.”
This isn’t the first time that the TIGTA has managed to give the IRS credit for doing a decent job. Last month J. Russell George managed to give tepid kudos to the Service for providing satisfactory service at assistance centers but also reminded everyone that a mind-numbingly complex government bureaucracy can always get better. They’re blowing off the deaf and mute, after all.
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Are they really hiring 87,000 actual agents? Or are a lot of these jobs going to be filing, answering phones, sorting mail, low level admin tasks that have very little to do with actual audits.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with the IRS getting a bigger budget. Anyone who’s been on hold for 6 hours to talk to someone at the IRS just to verify some taxpayer data should welcome this news.
All this scaremongering is silly, and so is all the animosity towards the IRS. It’s like being mad the police because they arrest you for robbing a bank, they just enforce the laws – they don’t make them.
Everyone need to chill. The IRS has been long overdue for a larger budget and and upgrade on their systems. This is a good thing everyone. Relax.
Not quite. People are, correctly, angry with the police for harassment or overreach of authority, and having more IRS agents will have the same effect. Animosity toward the IRS is wholly justified and fear of its expansion is rational.
Just like the police, it’s not just about enforcing the laws, but how the laws are enforced. How they exercise their power.
And, further, if the laws they are enforcing are unjust, opposing the arm of enforcement is also reasonable.
A huge expansion of the IRS is not something to be celebrated.
Uhh idk about y’all but I’ll celebrate the IRS hiring people to answer the phones for sure
In over 100 years there have only ever been 8-9,000 IRS Agents filling law enforcement positions…the 87,000 are more likely to be revenue agents, auditors, and admin staff…
I’m sorry, but I kind of love that one dude with “CPA” written on his little military style helmet. Gonna go show this pic to my kids and tell them that’s what mommy does for a living.