President Obama wants to pump up the Internal Revenue Service budget to $13.28 billion via a 9.4 percent increase in funding as part of his austere budget. This will allow the IRS to hire 5,100 more agents.
It is all about pursuing the $300 billion in taxes that Congress contends is not being collected that is owed to Uncle Sam. They might as well hire 5,100 people to comb the woods in search of Big Foot.
First, how does Congress know $300 billion a year in taxes aren’t being collected? If they can attach a dollar amount to the short fall then they have tangible evidence that it isn’t being collected so why aren’t they collecting it now?
The answer has everything to do with the way Congress and the rest of Washington operates. They make projections and those projections soon become the gospel.
Remember back in the 1970s how the special interest groups lobbying for funding perpetuated the myth that a million children go missing every year? (That is the equivalent of 20 million children disappearing in 10 years or almost a 15th of the country’s population). It spurred campaigns on the back of milk cartoons.
A look at the real numbers shows a much different picture. The United States Department of Justice in a one-year period noted that 797,500 children under the age 18 were reported missing. Of that 203,900 were victims of family abductions and almost all returned within a day or so. Another 58,200 were the victims of non-family abductions with again the same results. Most were found within hours, having simply wandered off. There were 115 victims of children by people that were not known to the victim that are stereotypical kidnappings. While 115 is 115 too many, the real number of exploited and missing children is a fraction of what was being promoted by special interest groups as the gospel.
The odds are overwhelming that the same is true of that “missing” $300 billion in annual taxes. We keep hearing the number and we believe it to be true.
The truth is it is simply a projection. If there was concrete evidence of under collecting the IRS would have to know about it. But they don’t. Congress is simply guessing and in doing so implying the problem is probably much greater than it really is. That, of course is why we need another 5,100 IRS agents.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to simplify the tax code, eliminate tax loopholes and go to flat taxes? That way it would be much easier for taxpayers to comply. It would also be much harder for unscrupulous folks to cheat.
The tax code itself is confusing even to the IRS.
A few years back I got a notice from the IRS saying I owed self-employment taxes on income that I had already paid.
After numerous correspondence and sending copies of pay stubs and lengthy explanations of my relationship with the company that employed me by paying me a salary, the IRS staffer handling my case was able to get a ruling from a supervisor that as a columnist I fell under the same part of the tax code that governed independent fishermen who worked for a company but also did contract work for that employer so therefore did not owe self-employment tax on top of income tax I had already paid as my employer in the case of the line of work I did could compensate me in the manner they did.
It made no sense to me and it was so obscure that the IRS had to research it.
In any case, it was clear that I wasn’t working for a different company but was being compensated for the re-use of work I was already paid for.
I was advised by the IRS to hold on to the letter they sent me in case the issue came up again in future tax years. It doesn’t sound like a clear cut tax code to me when the IRS has to spend time trying to figure out what specific sections mean, who it applies to and who it doesn’t apply to and then advises the taxpayer to hold on to their determination as my situation will probably confuse other IRS workers in the future.
Let’s also be honest. Another 5,100 IRS agents is no match for corporate America that hires tons of lawyers and accountants to play shell games with tax credits and loopholes.
Government needs to stop throwing money at problems and instead actually rethink how it goes about the business of collecting taxes and providing basic services to Americans.
It is all about pursuing the $300 billion in taxes that Congress contends is not being collected that is owed to Uncle Sam. They might as well hire 5,100 people to comb the woods in search of Big Foot.
First, how does Congress know $300 billion a year in taxes aren’t being collected? If they can attach a dollar amount to the short fall then they have tangible evidence that it isn’t being collected so why aren’t they collecting it now?
The answer has everything to do with the way Congress and the rest of Washington operates. They make projections and those projections soon become the gospel.
Remember back in the 1970s how the special interest groups lobbying for funding perpetuated the myth that a million children go missing every year? (That is the equivalent of 20 million children disappearing in 10 years or almost a 15th of the country’s population). It spurred campaigns on the back of milk cartoons.
A look at the real numbers shows a much different picture. The United States Department of Justice in a one-year period noted that 797,500 children under the age 18 were reported missing. Of that 203,900 were victims of family abductions and almost all returned within a day or so. Another 58,200 were the victims of non-family abductions with again the same results. Most were found within hours, having simply wandered off. There were 115 victims of children by people that were not known to the victim that are stereotypical kidnappings. While 115 is 115 too many, the real number of exploited and missing children is a fraction of what was being promoted by special interest groups as the gospel.
The odds are overwhelming that the same is true of that “missing” $300 billion in annual taxes. We keep hearing the number and we believe it to be true.
The truth is it is simply a projection. If there was concrete evidence of under collecting the IRS would have to know about it. But they don’t. Congress is simply guessing and in doing so implying the problem is probably much greater than it really is. That, of course is why we need another 5,100 IRS agents.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to simplify the tax code, eliminate tax loopholes and go to flat taxes? That way it would be much easier for taxpayers to comply. It would also be much harder for unscrupulous folks to cheat.
The tax code itself is confusing even to the IRS.
A few years back I got a notice from the IRS saying I owed self-employment taxes on income that I had already paid.
After numerous correspondence and sending copies of pay stubs and lengthy explanations of my relationship with the company that employed me by paying me a salary, the IRS staffer handling my case was able to get a ruling from a supervisor that as a columnist I fell under the same part of the tax code that governed independent fishermen who worked for a company but also did contract work for that employer so therefore did not owe self-employment tax on top of income tax I had already paid as my employer in the case of the line of work I did could compensate me in the manner they did.
It made no sense to me and it was so obscure that the IRS had to research it.
In any case, it was clear that I wasn’t working for a different company but was being compensated for the re-use of work I was already paid for.
I was advised by the IRS to hold on to the letter they sent me in case the issue came up again in future tax years. It doesn’t sound like a clear cut tax code to me when the IRS has to spend time trying to figure out what specific sections mean, who it applies to and who it doesn’t apply to and then advises the taxpayer to hold on to their determination as my situation will probably confuse other IRS workers in the future.
Let’s also be honest. Another 5,100 IRS agents is no match for corporate America that hires tons of lawyers and accountants to play shell games with tax credits and loopholes.
Government needs to stop throwing money at problems and instead actually rethink how it goes about the business of collecting taxes and providing basic services to Americans.
