From 2005 to 2010, the IRS earned about $14.7 billion annually by conducting audits. By fiscal year 2015, that number had dropped to $7.32 billion because of IRS budget cuts, according to CNBC’s Kevin McCoy.
“Our natural reaction to that kind of statistic is that fewer audits is a good thing,” Attorney Joe Garza said. “The truth is more a mixed bag, though. The lower audit count means the IRS has lost funding and therefore can’t track down corporations and individuals who are breaking the law.”
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has echoed that sentiment. "No office in this organization has been untouched,” he told USA Today. “What you've got is the lowest level of staffing in 20 years.”
So what’s the verdict? Is a weaker IRS a good thing, or does it actually hurt the American people?
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Allgov.com reports the following: “The IRS has lost 15,000 workers since 2010, but at the same time, the number of income tax returns filed by individuals went up 3%, to 146 million.” The number of returns goes up while the number of IRS workers goes down---certainly not a logical progression.
While the government is first to feel the effects of IRS budget cuts---it receives only half the revenue it once did from audits---everyday citizens experience the trickle-down effect as well.
Invest-smart.org cites IRS Commissioner John Koskinen: ”Such [budget cuts] have made it nearly impossible for many taxpayers to reach the agency with questions,” Koskinen said. “Fewer than half of the calls placed to the IRS were answered in fiscal [year] 2015, and callers who did get through waited on hold for an average 23 minutes.”
According to CNBC, the number of callers to reach an IRS agent with questions was actually 38%, a sign of unprecedented bad customer service. Service was so bad, in fact, that Congress enacted a recent $290 million increase to improve service to
Along with the rising threats of larger militaries spawning in the world, it became apparent we needed more funding for our own. Along with the rapid development of America came more demands for the government to pay for. Although, how the money is collected is confusing, and how it is spent becomes wasteful at times. The IRS is one of the most confusing systems to understand for not only citizens, but the people who operate and work for it. Alongside with how the money is never saved and meant to be spent when given to government agencies, doesn’t respect the taxpayer. I find it necessary, although how it is practiced boots it down the list.
KPMG was one of the biggest accounting firms in the 90’s that with a lucrative end, would serve wealthy companies using forged revenues in order to avoid taxes. The accountants that worked for the firm were expected to meet certain quotas. Consequently, instead of trying to run an honest business they were trying to maximize the sales using all kinds of dishonest marketing approaches. KPMG employees used foreign banks as well as bogus law firm statements to preserve a legitimate business running. This accounting firm manipulated financial data of clients, costing the internal revenue service over 2.5 billion in lost tax revenue
Incidents of corruption sometimes occur in the Canadian tax administration but are not considered a concern by surveyed companies (Business Corruption in Canada, 2016).
According to Shultz (2002), individuals and businesses fund the Federal Government through personal income and payroll taxes. With the unemployment rate at 8.1% as of January 1st, 2014 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014), created an overall shortage in both individual and business taxes.
Our current income tax system today is very complex, unfair, inhibits saving, investment and job creation, imposes a heavy burden on families, and weakens the integrity of the democratic process. It can't be fixed and must be replaced. The U.S. income tax code is a long and complex system. The income tax system is so complex; the IRS publishes 480 tax forms and 280 forms to explain the 480 forms. The IRS sends out eight billion pages of forms and instructions each year. The administrative costs of the tax system far exceed those borne directly by the IRS. Each year Americans devote 5.4 billion hours complying with the tax code, which is more time than it takes to build every car, truck, and van produced in the U.S.
Stanton Delaplane once joked about the IRS, saying he heard it had suggested a simplified tax form with only one question: How much money did you make last year? The IRS response was, "Mail it in"." Thank goodness, our taxes haven 't gotten quite that bad. It is true though, that the majority of Americans, most of us included, have to bite the
Growing spending and debt are undermining economic growth and may push the nation into a financial crisis in coming years. Edward then stated that the solution to these problems is to downsize every federal department by cutting the most harmful programs. This study proposes specific cuts that would reduce federal spending by almost one-quarter and balance the budget in less than a decade."
The New York Times article, “Wait Lists Grow as Many More Veterans Seek Care and Funding Falls Far Short” says the Department of Veterans Affairs agency has a new crisis they’re facing. The wait list of Veteran’s is more than 50% higher than it was last year, departments say. They are also facing nearly a $3 billion budget short, which could very well affect the care of our veterans.
This may sound like a tax plan that will relieve the financial burden on lower-income taxpayers, directly benefiting the poor, but in actuality, cutting taxes for all in a regressive manner gives substantially more money to the wealthiest taxpayers and a very small amount to lower income taxpayers. According to his plan, a typical American family of four will be able to keep at least $1, 600 more of
There is nothing worse than working hard all year, having taxes withheld from your paycheck, and then finding out you still owe Uncle Sam come April. Taxes seem to be one of the most politically charged issues, with candidates from both parties making the topic an integral part of their campaign. Whether any real movement takes place is something that remains to be seen, as the Nation gears up for the next Presidential election.
Whilst William McBride, chief economist for Tax Foundation website, sided with tax cut policy saying that to strengthen the financial state, “we should lower taxes on the earnings of capital,” “workers and the businesses that hire them,” Chye-ching Huang and Nathaniel Frentz, both are senior Tax Policy analysts, completely debunked the evidence McBride provided to support his argument, which includes the review of twenty-three among twenty-six studies he thought to advocate the idea. Indeed, as one conducts research, regardless of what sources it comes from, agreement over tax issue should never be found as a unanimous answer. One of the reasons why it is so difficult to reach a definite conclusion rests on the fact that although some statistics may show economic growth was in step with tax cut, correlation does not mean causation: just as ice-cream sale and murder rate increase during summer time, it is baseless to assume that higher ice-cream consumption leads to higher odds for crime. Moreover, because there is a great amount of research has been done on taxes, different interpretations from these data are understandable. Before concluding that “nearly every empirical study of taxes and economic growth published in a peer reviewed academic journal” finds cutting taxes improves the financial status quo, thus, people need to consider
The United States is in a recession; it has been facing some of the worse economic times since the Great Depression in the 1930’s. One option to fix the economy is to change the corporate tax rate. To lower it or to raise it, that is the question economists have been speculating. America's high corporate tax rate and worldwide system of taxation discourages U.S. companies from sending their foreign-source revenue home, which makes U.S. companies defenseless to foreign acquisition from the international opponents (Camp). Corporations and United States citizens have been fighting for a tax reform, which would hopefully help the American economy; either by lowering the corporate tax, or by raising the tax.
The encouragement of economic disparity because of these tax cuts is bad for America. The US should be aiming for more social and economic equality for everybody. Tax cuts can slow down the economy by putting more money into the wealthy peoples’ hands and giving less to the people who need it.
The Federal Government relies predominately on the individual income tax, and federal income tax makes up more than 50 percent of the federal government’s revenue. Income taxes are paid by all those who earn income (Mikesell, 2011). It is essentially a bill from the federal and state governments for individual earnings through salaries and investment profits. Income tax is considered a progressive tax because the individual's financial obligation rises with the level of reportable income (Mikesell, 2011). Although income tax is the one of the most effective ways of raising revenue for the government, it is also one of the most controversial.
Whenever economic turbulence increases, the policy makers adjust the taxation rates in an effort to stabilize it. When it comes to income