Kristi Noem, John Thune, and other Republicans who depend on manufactured fear rather than actual skill to keep their government jobs have claimed that that awesome budget deal that Democrats worked out last summer will sic an army of new IRS auditors on us.
The Internal Revenue Service announced last week that it has hired the first 4,000 of 5,000 anticipated new employees this year, and they all appear to be the kind of helpers Dusty Johnson told us last July we sorely need:
The Internal Revenue Service announced today significant progress to prepare for the 2023 tax filing season as the agency passed a milestone of hiring 4,000 new customer service representatives to help answer phones and provide other services.
These assistors have been hired over the last several months and are being trained to provide help to taxpayers, including answering phone questions. This is part of a much wider IRS improvement effort tied to the Inflation Reduction Act funding approved in August [Internal Revenue Service, press release, 2022.10.27].
The IRS is hiring all these people to help us pay our taxes correctly, not to track us down after April 15 for making mistakes. How nice!
Perhaps the IRS is signaling that it will make customer service more efficient with the fact that it has made its hiring more efficient:
IRS improvements and use of the new direct hire authority have speeded the hiring process. This year, these positions have been brought on since August; last year, it took approximately eight months to hire customer service representatives [IRS, 2022.10.27].
It’s all good fun to use government and the IRS in particular as a campaign punching bag. But if you want help with your taxes—free help that keeps your 1040 clean!—you should support the funding provided in the Inflation Reduction Act to hire more IRS staff and make taxpayer assistance more available.
It was all started by the pleading the fifth boy Rick Scott.
More “helpers” and more auditors are the right step to improve IRS services. Even more so, we need a revised, simplified tax code that closes the hundreds of loopholes that encourage looting by those who can afford to engage in those scams.
Dusty is a fine helper. We all like the “helpers” who help us. But let no one misunderstand the role of the IRS. Dusty is too soft and libbie.
Federal law says you shall pay your taxes. If you don’t, you are making grudznick, and his roaddogs, pay your share. That is unacceptable to us. If you don’t pay your share, either the IRS sends goons to beat it out of you or some of the fellows who feel much like grudznick will be sure to make sure you pay your share.
No free rides, people. Pay your taxes. Mr. President Uncle Joe Biden needs to fire these softy hand-holders and get some more fellows with guns and calculators out there crawling up the tax cheat’s arses.
Take a pill, grudznichts. Perhaps an antidepressant would level your extremism to somewhere near tolerable.
We will get more auditors, too, and as Arlo says, that’s a good thing. Republicans have been defunding the tax police for years in an effort to protect their rich tax-dodging donors. President Biden is restoring the IRS’s ability to enforce the law and help citizens file their taxes correctly. And remember: those people answering the phones aren’t out to get more money out of taxpayers. It’s just as likely that a call to IRS customer service will save a taxpayer money. Helping people file their taxpayers includes pointing out deductions, pointing people to the right part of the tax table, and catching mistakes that could cost taxpayers money.
Correct Cory, from what I understand it’s not just about collecting taxes but making it easier for people like me to file. Anyone should be able to go online, make a phone call, go to the local Senior Center, library or even to an IRS satellite office and file for free. So many people pay tax services to fill out the simple 1040 form. It’s like with voting, it should be easy, and help should be readily available. This is a SERVICE we pay for.
Remember the mess with the pandemic, that back log broke a system that was already failing us through inefficiency and being understaffed. Sounds like the post office as well thanks to the cheap skate Republicans.
-No one who makes under the federal poverty line should have to file
-forms should be simple to fill out
-processing should be free
Congress, including johnson via his inaction, created or allowed to fester, a ludicrous, wasteful income tax regime written and paid for by lobbyist working for the the top 2% who then magically play the loopholes they created. It’s a game. We. are. losing. The “tax accounting” mafia do not help either.
The IRS knows what 95% of the tax payers earn and owe 95% of the time. The income tax ought to be so simple that at the end of the year the IRS pushes a button and either sends us a refund or bill.
why would republicans support billionaires and their desires over governing the welfare of 850,000 South Dakotans?