IRS "Help" Spectacularly Wrong

[RS Davis]

[glow=red,2,300]by James W. Harris[/glow]

An IRS test audit of 23 tax returns prepared by IRS employees at IRS
assistance centers found that 19 of the 23 were done incorrectly.

Further, when IRS auditors posing as taxpayers asked for answers to tax
questions at the centers, the answers were right only 69% of the time.

Responding to Congressional criticism of this appalling failure, IRS
Commissioner Mark Everson said the IRS tried to train its workers adequately,
but "It's a complicated law."

IRS Inspector General Pamela Gardiner nonetheless told a Congressional
committee that the IRS had made "impressive" improvements in the last few
years in giving accurate tax advice, particularly at the IRS Web site and in
the toll-free phone service. However, accuracy figures dropped this year on
the phone service, she admitted, and the vaunted IRS Web site took three to
four days to respond and was wrong one in five times.

(Source: Knight-Ridder news story:
www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/8378961.htm )

[dr snootch]

RS said:

[glow=red,2,300]by James W. Harris[/glow]

An IRS test audit of 23 tax returns prepared by IRS employees at IRS
assistance centers found that 19 of the 23 were done incorrectly.

Further, when IRS auditors posing as taxpayers asked for answers to tax
questions at the centers, the answers were right only 69% of the time.

Responding to Congressional criticism of this appalling failure, IRS
Commissioner Mark Everson said the IRS tried to train its workers adequately,
but "It's a complicated law."

IRS Inspector General Pamela Gardiner nonetheless told a Congressional
committee that the IRS had made "impressive" improvements in the last few
years in giving accurate tax advice, particularly at the IRS Web site and in
the toll-free phone service. However, accuracy figures dropped this year on
the phone service, she admitted, and the vaunted IRS Web site took three to
four days to respond and was wrong one in five times.

(Source: Knight-Ridder news story:
www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/8378961.htm )

It's almost enough to make you laugh. Until you realize that we're PAYING THESE FUCKING PEOPLES' SALARIES. Every fucking time I hear about shit like this it just makes me want to rip my fucking hair out. What really pisses me off, though, is the 'What are you gonna do about it' attitude that our government constantly cops.

Things are steadily progressing toward a boiling point, and I'm not sure another Revolutionary War can be avoided. I'm not sure there's any way that politicians are going to give up all this power they've usurped for themselves and help bring the government back down to Constitutionally-mandated levels.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how much longer the Constitution will be a relevant document. We're at a point right now where the President and his major opponent have both publicly said they would try to change the Constitution to write discrimination into it.

This has to be the first time that both major political parties have publicly supported discrimination and that's a very troubling thought. Bush is so fixated on the war in Iraq, I wonder what he's going to do when he looks back over here and sees his own country in another 'Civil' War.

Sorry, I probably should've ranted in a different thread, that article just got my blood all hot again this morning.

P.S. You should check out the Gender Equality thread on the STLToday forum. Not really much substance in my posts, but I kind of really blasted DVB. I was pretty sure I was going to get banned, but so far, nothing's happened.

[RS Davis]

dr said:

P.S. You should check out the Gender Equality thread on the STLToday forum. Not really much substance in my posts, but I kind of really blasted DVB. I was pretty sure I was going to get banned, but so far, nothing's happened.

What was that again? "Fuck you, you fucking fuck!"

- Rick

[dr snootch]

RS said:

What was that again? "Fuck you, you fucking fuck!"

- Rick

yeah, I thought it fit

[Ancient Dragon]

The problem isn't really the agents, or IRS. The real problem is Congress who manufactured all those complicated laws. And its been that way for the past 50 years that I know of. What we need to do is put all the tax laws through the paper shredder and pass one simple tax law, most probably a flat tax with no exceptions and no exemptions. Not talking about a sales tax, but an income tax. If you earn $1.00 you pay $0.05 federal tax. I don't know if that's too much or too little, but its a place to start.

[RS Davis]

Ancient said:

The problem isn't really the agents, or IRS. The real problem is Congress who manufactured all those complicated laws. And its been that way for the past 50 years that I know of. What we need to do is put all the tax laws through the paper shredder and pass one simple tax law, most probably a flat tax with no exceptions and no exemptions. Not talking about a sales tax, but an income tax. If you earn $1.00 you pay $0.05 federal tax. I don't know if that's too much or too little, but its a place to start.

:-[If we must have an income tax, that would be the way to go. I wonder how much productivity would increase if people didn't spend so much time deciphering, avoiding, sweating, and paying their taxes.

- Rick