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Taxman on the Ropes
Are Threats to the IRS Good News or Bad for Taxpayers?
Recently, I’ve taken to scrolling through published reports by the Government Accountability Office. In addition to being refreshingly objective and nonpartisan, GAO reports offer surprisingly fascinating examinations of all the government agencies funded by Congress, focusing on what works and what needs work. One such report involving the IRS prompted me to do a little independent research about the government agency that every American loves to hate. To my surprise, I came away with a new perspective about the importance of supporting this institution.
This past April the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) unveiled a long overdue modernization planto bring the organization into the 21stCentury. It is a six-year strategy with goals of improving service for taxpayers, enhancing enforcement activities, promoting cost efficiencies, and providing protection against cybersecurity threats.
The IRS began using computers in the 1960s and has never had a major, wholistic system overhaul. “Faced with complex tax laws and time constraints,” says an IRS press release, “the IRS has had to continuously add systems to its IT environment. The result is a highly complex technical ecosystem; the cost of which is growing on an unsustainable trajectory.” The plan, therefore, calls for modernizing archaic information…
