Crunch Time For IRS Data Centers

1sockchuck writes "It's crunch time for the Internal Revenue Service. As the IRS processes the annual crescendo of returns around today's tax deadline, the state of the agency's infrastructure depends upon who you ask. IT executives at the IRS say it has made huge strides in modernizing its data centers, which processed 139 million returns and issued $298 billion in refunds in 2009. Independent tests say the IRS web site is the fastest US government site, and one of the fastest on the web. But a key government watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, says the modernization effort hasn't moved quickly enough, and continues to fault the IRS for security weaknesses."

Comments

Good for them

[Rallias Ubernerd]

Its crunch time to process their robberies

Re:Good for them

[Anonymous Coward]

How 'bout them roads you drove to work on today?

Re:Good for them

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the ones built buy my state?

Re:Good for them

[Anonymous Coward]

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like, using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads build by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health administration, enjoying another two meals which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department. And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on Freerepublic.com and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the government can't do anything right.

Re:Good for them

[ColdWetDog]

Yep those, the ones built with matching federal money.

Always the roads

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, if you want to put it that way, I'll admit that I use about 5-10% of what I pay for when it comes to government. And I'm barely even middle-class.

Let's put this into perspective: we're talking about the most expensive, most powerful government AND world empire (with military bases in some 150 countries) in history. If you don't think the US government has WAY more money than a government needs to provide useful government services, then either you're not thinking hard enough, or you're in the business of government yourself.

So many billions wasted for nothing

[Shivetya]

Because we have a system built on the idea of coercing people to behave a certain way than a system which encourages productivity, savings, and the like. A system which allows petty government bureaucrats to punish or reward particular constituencies on near whim. Hence we are saddled with such a complex system that billions are spent by the government to administer it and billions more by individuals and companies to comply with it.

and in the end, we still spend nearly 40% more than we take in.

Infrastructure

[girlintraining]

You know, the first thing I look at when designing IT infrastructure is where to simplify the existing process before converting it to a computer-assisted model. The IRS tax laws, exemptions, and everything else is unnecessarily complicated for what they are charged with. Don't fault the IRS for being slow and making mistakes when you've saddled them with such a dense and overly complex process that people can make a career out of gaming it.

Processing several hundred million requests is something some web servers do on a daily basis without much problem.

Question

[Pojut]

Unless you owe a lot in taxes or back taxes and just need the extra time to come up with the money...why would you wait until the very last day to file? Come on...you are going to have to do it eventually, why not do it early and get it over with?

We e-filed back in the third week of January...and both of us got our Federal & State returns literally three business days later direct deposited. If you don't owe any money and are due back a tax return, why wouldn't you file as soon as possible?

Re:Question

[digsbo]

Simple. Doing taxes is stressful. The tax code is confusing. The IRS is feared. Generally, people will avoid doing things which are unpleasant, and doing taxes is doubly so because of the fear involved. Perhaps you simply don't suffer from any anxiety about the process, or have better-than-average coping skills.

Re:Oopsies!

[vxice]

or you could just save in a bank account. even your wallet or a shoe box under the bed would work if you don't have access to a bank.

Re:Oblig.

[level_headed_midwest]

Actually, I bet that they are being overtaxed right now...

Re:Oopsies!

[Hatta]

Wow, your marriage is pretty fucked up.

Re:Oopsies!

[MyLongNickName]

you know, i used to agree with you 100%. I aim for a zero refund (which is hard with the way tax rules are changing so quickly). But then I had a change of heart when I realized not everyone is like me.

Some folks aren't as disciplined with savings, and this is a way they force themselves to save. I think it is wonderful when people realize their areas of relative weakness and work around it. If someone has a drinking problem... is it so bad that they avoid driving by the neighborhood bar? Sure, it might be an incovenience, but they are avoiding a bigger problem.

So, if someone chooses to use the IRS as their piggy bank... good for them. At least they recognize a problem, and are doing something about it.

What I would recommend is that GP at least look at some type of savings account that auto deducts. But even if he doesn't, then it is great that he has some type of savings plan.

Re:Oopsies!

[MyLongNickName]

Um, no... no it isn't. The worst way to manage your money is to spend like mad with no correlation to income.

GP is using a suboptimal savings strategy. But he is saving. In the grand scheme of things, he is on the right side of the savers' bell curve. Most people's idea of savings is to have enough for Friday night's party.

Re:False dilemma

[eln]

Mankind has been around for hundreds of thousands of years, and yet these services only became available when the government stepped in and provided them. Read up on working conditions during the Gilded Age before all of the various safe employment laws and agencies were created for one example. You can also read up on the deplorable conditions in meat packing plants before the USDA stepped in.

So, when exactly were all of these other institutions going to get around to providing any of this stuff? People keep saying if we got rid of the government the private sector would provide, but the fact is the private sector worked without significant government intervention for quite a long time, and it sucked ass for anyone not belonging to the moneyed elite.

Re:False dilemma

[Colonel Korn]

Your argument is a false dilemma; either the government will provide these things, or they will not be provided. It ignores the alternative of other institutions providing them.

He doesn't imply that they wouldn't be otherwise provided. He states that they are provided as a justification for taxes. Some of those agencies do things that I think would be better done through other means, but I recognize that the money I pay actually does go to something, or many somethings.

Re:It could be easier

[russotto]

3) Mortgage-interest deduction encourages people to buy as much house as they can afford, and encourages owning over renting to the detriment of other investments.

That one's the third rail of the tax code. Try to touch that and your political career risks getting zapped into oblivion. Note that Wyden isn't touching it. In principal I dislike it, in practice I've already bought the house and I'd be pretty ticked if it went away. Since its existence contributes to the cost of housing, eliminating it would cause another real-estate crisis, and we're not over the last one yet.

Re:False dilemma

[Anonymous Coward]

I know I'd just love it if I had several different competing police departments to choose from. What could go wrong there?

Re:It could be easier

[rev_sanchez]

We've reformed the tax code before to simplify it and it bloats back up. The reason it bloats back up has to do with getting those last few votes on a close bill. One of the things the voting public tends to measure the success of representatives and senators by is not only how much federal money they can bring home but by how much money they can keep from going to the feds by adding a few more special provisions to the tax code. You can't just reform the tax code without reforming how changes are made to the tax code later or we'll be right back where we started.

As for the IT angle, the managers at the IRS are scared of automating a decade’s long process because computers can greatly improve the efficiency of many things like screwing up a couple million tax returns on a bad afternoon. It doesn't help much that the tax code has significant changes every year and the IRS is almost universally demonized so getting resources and good support is probably difficult.

Incorrect Choice of Words

[AthleteMusicianNerd]

People always talk about the tax code being too complex. This is non-sense. Complex implies intelligence. There is no intelligence in the tax code. It is CONVOLUTED.