The IRS swamp: Tax collectors refuse to clean up their act for Trump
“Now that my brother’s term is ended I am free to declare my support for Donald J. Trump President of the U.S.A.” – Malik Obama, sibling of former President Barack Obama
In a display of their usual arrogance and corruption-prone behavior, officials from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) responded to a congressional watchdog’s report to clean up their act with a “thanks but no thanks” attitude, according to angry law enforcement officers from the American Federation of Police.
Many organizations have pleaded with federal lawmakers to force officials to improve the enormously powerful IRS in the wake of that agency’s scandalous behavior during the Obama administration.
“Trump may not be the perfect vessel to overturn this mess, but he is a true outsider willing to suck out the sludge from The Swamp. He is not beholden to the interests of D.C. and that is what scares them. That has been why acolytes in The Swamp on both sides of the aisle have been against him from the beginning. They will tell you it is because of his sordid comments or his distorted political views. They will sound high-minded. But it is because the hotshots on K Street will not be able to march into the White House and get what they want for their special interests.” – Bruce Bialosky, Townhall
“As President Donald Trump focuses on implementing changes across the federal government, there’s one agency that desperately needs his attention – and his penchant for change – the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),” Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, told Fox News . “For many years now, we have been battling a corrupt IRS in federal court. This is a lawless IRS that wrongly targeted grassroots conservatives during the Obama administration,” he noted.
In addition, the federal tax-collecting agency’s monitoring system failed to prevent paying fraudulent tax returns to tax cheats such as “cash businesses,” refund-seekers who are defrauding the welfare system, illegal aliens working at multiple locations with multiple identification instruments, and others, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released this week.
GAO officials urged the IRS to beef up oversight of tax returns, but IRS officials defied the congressional watchdog’s recommendations.
According to the GAO investigators, the IRS during last year’s filing season — between January and mid-April — its performance during the full fiscal year remained low. “[The] IRS does not make this nor other types of customer service information easily available to taxpayers, such as in an online dashboard. Without easily accessible information, taxpayers are not well informed on what to expect when requesting services from IRS.”
While the IRS improved their services for victims of identity theft (IDT) refund fraud, there remain inefficiencies that contribute to delays, and potentially weak internal controls may lead to the release of fraudulent refunds.
In turn, this limits IRS’s ability to serve taxpayers and protect federal dollars. While IRS has reduced its backlog of IDT cases and formed a team to improve its handling of these cases, GAO has identified areas for potential improvement.
The GAO report states: “Potential weaknesses in IRS’s internal control processes could lead to IRS paying refunds to fraudsters. In discussion groups with GAO, IRS assistors and managers said some assistors may release refunds even if indicators on the account show that the tax return is under review for IDT, or two returns have been filed for that taxpayer. Some participants said assistors answering telephone calls can release these holds because they do not understand the codes on the taxpayer’s account. IRS officials said that these errors are not widespread and provided data to support their position. However, GAO identified weaknesses in those data, which IRS officials acknowledged. In response to this report, in January 2017 officials provided another analysis of IRS data that they said showed this type of error does occur but may not be as widespread as staff and managers suggested. GAO will continue to work with IRS to determine if these additional data are sufficient to address its recommendation.”
The GAO investigation did uncover the fact that the IRS does not consider a dependent to be a fraud or crime victim if his/her Social Security number was used as a dependent on a fraudulent tax return.
IRS officials at one time offered guidance to taxpayers when a dependent was a victim of identity theft. After one data breach in 2015, IRS notified taxpayers and provided information on actions that parents could take to protect a minor’s identity when their dependents were also victims.
By not notifying taxpayers that their dependents’ information may have been used to commit fraud, IRS is limiting taxpayers’ ability to take action to protect their dependents’ identity.
OBAMACARE IRS STORM TROOPERS
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.—C. S. Lewis (1898 1963)
When most people think of health care reform they think of more doctors exams, not more IRS exams, says U.S. Congressman Kevin Brady, the top House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee. Isn’t the federal government already intruding enough into our lives? We need thousands of new doctors and nurses in America, not thousands more IRS agents.
Scores of new federal mandates and fifteen different tax increases totaling $400 billion are imposed under the Democratic House bill. In addition to more complicated tax returns, families and small businesses will be forced to reveal further tax information to the IRS, provide proof of government approved health care and submit detailed sales information to comply with new excise taxes.
Scores of new federal mandates and fifteen different tax increases totaling $400 billion are imposed under the Democratic House bill. In addition to more complicated tax returns, families and small businesses will be forced to reveal further tax information to the IRS, provide proof of government approved health care and submit detailed sales information to comply with new excise taxes.
