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No EZ Fix For The IRS
meltoast writes "Apparently the IRS is storing all of the taxpaying histories of 227 million individuals and corporations in a system that still runs code written in 1962. CIO Magazine is running a story on the IRS's nearly failed $8 billion modernization attempt that includes missed deadlines, cost overruns of over $200 million and four CIO's in seven years."
Look on the bright side. There's no way Windows worms can touch this.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I don't understand why they just don't get Intuit to do it.
No pun intended.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Can I audit them when they just "write it off" ?
ACK!! Yoour strategy is much too simple and error-proof. There is no *way* our government would approve something with such a high probablity of success ;)
Sir, I am sure we can arrive at an agreement on this matter. Would you agree to a repayment plan for your $2.00 deficit? We can set up a very low interest loan with payments of less than 11 cents per month. You will be able to get your finances squared away and look to the future with confidence.
cost overruns of over $200 million
next time i'm off by $200 million while paying taxes, they'll understand
IRS's nearly failed $8 billion modernization attempt
So, the IRS can't manage money? Then why are we giving our taxes to them?
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
What do you mean you don't have a record of my tax payment? I already....*cough* paid it!
cost overruns of over $200 million and four CIO's in seven years
So do they get a big tax write-off this year or what?
*badum ching*
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
10% to the US Government
3% to the RIAA, to pay for the stuff they assume we've pirated in the last year.
3% to the MPAA, to pay for the stuff they assume we've pirated in the last year.
2% to Microsoft, as part of a "super-tough" DoJ settlement for Microsoft's wrongdoing.
2% to Halliburton, for no apparent reason, the government just likes to give them money.
I bet there are at least 1000 people right here on slashdot who could understand it just fine, and wouldn't mind putting a few "exceptions" in the tax code:
"We need a fourth law of Robotics: Stop Fingering My Wife"
Just outsource the work to Indian programmers. I mean, if politicians think it's such a boon for the economy, then what's the problem? What could possibly go wrong?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Yes, but $200,000,000 could easily go towards infrastructure, for example, making life more livable for hundreds of thousands of people.
Even better, I would bet the sinking ships of social security and medicare could make good use of all that diffused and useless pork money (I bet it's in the tens of billions of dollars).
$200,000,000 is enough for 50 or more people (including me, of course:) to retire right now and never have to work another day ever in their lives. This isn't chump change, and the people "in power" who abuse it should be seriously ashamed.
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
You could fire 99% of the IRS employees and get the operating budget to that of a Taco Bell.
Unfortunately, the IRS is here to stay, for political reasons. Getting rid of the IRS as we know it would:
1) Make thousands of IRS employees unemployed (who would, of course, bitch about it).
2) Make tens of thousands of H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, etc. employees unemployed (who would, of course, bitch about it).
3) Put out of work many thousands of independent tax accountants (who would, of course, bitch about it).
4) Make it hard or impossible for so many well-to-do people and businesses to pay no tax at all (who would, of course, bitch about it).
5) It would put poor people out of their Earned Income Credit (who would, of course, bitch about it).
6) Bitch, bitch, bitch, moan, moan, moan, ad nauseum, until no politician would ever dream of altering the IRS.
Basically, the IRS is the biggest political tool ever created in human history. Getting rid of it is not only impossible, it's less possible than impossible.
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
That's what they want you to think.
But it really means Chief Iguana Ordinance. [Please note my slapdash emboldening of letters in emulation of the parent]
The real head of the project has been firing iguanas for the last few years but secretly remaining in power, as people, wrongly, think Chief Information Officers are being fired (how can someone be the chief of information anyway - do they sit around all dat loking at numbers on paper saying "I am your Chief"??? NO THEY DON'T! BECAUSE YOU ARE WRONG!!!!)
BZZT! WRONG!
WRONG!
WRONG!
WRONG!
WRONG!
WRONG!
What do you suggest? That they hire already employed people?
Better yet, for the ultimate hack, work on this project, doing nothing illegal while you are there, but pay close attention to the code that processes people's tax forms, and look for any buffer overflow bugs in the code that reads the text of the fields on the form (I assume they have some massive OCR system for this, instead of a warehouse full of typists doing it by hand).
F root.exe"
Then, next year, submit a very carefully crafted 1040 form on April 15...
"Hey, this 1040 seems a bit odd. It's from a Mr "John Doe __________akjg908t9(%&@(dasaga9agajda(%(@Q@FAA062
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
That is complete garbage-speak. I will not kil another human being, not based on moral reasons, but because I don't want to die, or worse, be locked up for life. If it was only 10-20 years, guarenteed, there are a few people I would gladly put a few holes in, for that price.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Yeah right, go do your homework and stop fantasizing about putting holes in that guy who called you a fatass at lunch today.
P226
That pesky $200 million "cost over-run"
would only have been about $45.76 U.S. Dollars
If it is truly from 1962, IBM 1401 assembly language would be the most likely candidate.
Now that's job security.
What?!? I didn't know they shared codebases w/ Microsoft!
That's a very interesting premise for a novel... some disgruntled IRS peon releases the *entire* IRS SSN database to the Internet. Now anybody can masquerade as anybody else - so effectively nobody has an identity!
"One of the downsides of the vaunted MS "ease-of-use" is the proliferation of half-assed coders who think they are hot, who have managed to ignore 50 years of history and knowledge, and are doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again."
And they are coming to Linux. Be afraid, be very afraid. Save yourselves, flee to BSD, the HURD, or even AmigaOS. We'll hold them back, while you go to safety. Take the children, they have so much to live for.
The software is over 40 years old, and STILL nobody has found a hack for major refund. ;-)
while true ; do echo this is my sig; done
IRS auditor: "Mr. Simpson, this government computer can process over nine tax returns per
day. Did you really think you could fool it?"
Why not publish the taxing rules and let someone
throw together a Postgresql/Apache software package?
Ahh, the refreshing enthusiasm of the naive. Or perhaps you ment it as a joke and the mods didn't get that?
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die