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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."
Its crunch time to process their robberies
So... the servers are being taxed right now?
My webcomic
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.
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.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
By those numbers the average refund is $2143.88. WTF.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
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?
Living With a Nerd
Scanning today's news turns up a lot of good examples for how the code could be simplified.
The five dumbest parts of the U.S. tax code
1) Ethanol credits increase the price of food, and give paper manufacturers more money in credits than they make from selling paper.
2) Exemption for inherited stock-gains.
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.
4) Exemption on employer-provided health insurance encourages employers to give more health insurance instead of wage increases, and discourages health insurers from competing on price.
5) Municipal-bond-interest exclusion gives more benefit to rich bond owners than it does to the municipalities that issue the bonds.
Congressman Wyden leads effort to simplify tax code
Taxes: There is a Better Way by U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg
The IRS's web presence (rather than their back-end data processing) is very good because they are heavily Akamaized: everything is hosted through Akamai's infrastructure, so its very quick to get to the IRS website.
Additionally, their site design is actually remarkably good and easy to navigate, so its both technically quick and usably quick.
But this is really orthoginal to the main issue in the article, which is the back-end, in-house infrastructure for processing all the returns.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Not surprising to me. My wife was bitching at me last night because we paid in less than $50 instead of getting a multi-thousand-dollar refund like her friends at work. They're all blowing the cash on down payments for new cars, vacations to the Caribbean, etc. Meanwhile, I continue to budget for the big-ticket items and save for them on a monthly basis.
So I told her that she wasn't bitching when she was spending the extra $200 she took home each month, and she wasn't bitching when she saw the amount I had put into savings from my pay last year.
Needless to say, I slept on the couch.
But the point is that among people who get a refund, a lot of them get a BIG refund. Even when I was a kid, I was getting refunds around $2k because I was a dependent of my parents even though I made less than $20k a year.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
but we like getting the big honkin' checks when we file.
So you like giving the government an interest free loan? You do realize you could be getting interest (albeit small) on the money which could then be used to pay for that expensive gadget.
It's one thing to game the system by using the one-month float on a credit card. It's quite another to float the government a nearly year-long, interest-free loan.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I used to do the same thing... but found an easy way to make sure I didn't have easy access to the money, but could still earn interest on it during the year.
Set up automatic withdrawals from your regular bank account(s), to be deposited into an investment account. It's very cheap to do, and if you seed it with a few thousand when you set it up, you won't get hit with monthly fees for maintaining a low balance. Different banks have different products for this kind of service, so talk to your banker.
You could also set up rolling CDs to do about the same thing, but I prefer having the separate investment account, since I can tap it in case of emergency without penalty.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Wow, your marriage is pretty fucked up.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
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.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
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.
There may have been some exaggeration of the relationship details for humor purposes... but the facts of the cash etc are the same.
The truth is, I don't have a wife. The only person I sleep with in my bed is an inflatable doll I call Sally, and she doesn't complain much about money.
I slept on the couch last night because I couldn't be bothered getting the Cheetos crumbs out of my sheets, and the night before last they scratched me up something fierce.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Maybe it's so fast because it only has 50-75% uptime. The IRS website is the only website I've ever seen that was "closed." See here.
Liberty in your lifetime
And before anyone says "but wait, they built the roads!"
And the aqueduct...
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
So I guess the "This Road Is Being Paid by Federal Funds" sign I drove by on the way to work today was all part of a vast conspiracy.
For years, there's been a pie chart near the end of every for 1040 instruction booklet showing how incoming and outgoing funds are allocated. Interest on the national debt is 8%.
This year it's on page 100: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040.pdf
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Particularly when government entities are becoming less and less solvent. Many states are temporarily suspending refund issuance right now because they simply can't cover them; California issued IOU's last year. The IRS actually implemented the option of receiving your refund in the form of U.S. Treasury Bonds this year - somewhat fishy, IMO. Let's hope that next year Treasury Bonds don't become the only option for refunds - even more reason to target your liability and close as possible, and err to the side of owing. You can leave up to $1,000 outstanding until the deadline, and as long as you pay it with your return or extension by 4/15, you won't be subject to any underpayment penalties.
I heart anarcho-capitalism.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/AvoidAnAudit/5waysToAvoidAnAudit.aspx?page=2 "On the other hand, if you are concerned about a potential audit, never file until the last minute. It won't hurt and can only decrease your chances of being selected."
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.
Government IOUs are called money. If the government is handing out something other than money in place of money, your money is worthless anyway.
If there was a way to stagger the due dates, such as by state or last name letter, then they wouldn't have such a huge peak to build infrastructure and staffing around. They could split the load over the year. The cost of handling such a huge peak is passed onto us taxpayers in the end[1].
For example, CA and TX may be due in January, NY and SC in February, etc.
[1] double entendre
Table-ized A.I.