IRS Warns of Downtime Risk As Congress Makes Cuts

dcblogs writes Successive budget cuts by Congress are forcing the Internal Revenue Service to delay system modernization that would improve its ability to prevent fraud. In telling of the problems ahead, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen almost sounded desperate in a recent memo to employees. The IRS is heavily dependent on technology, and the impact of the budget reduction to IT this year was put at $200 million. It will mean delays in replacing "aging IT systems" and "increasing the risk of downtime," Koskinen said. A new system to protect against ID theft will be delayed, and other IT cost-efficiency efforts curbed.The budget cuts have been so deep IRS employees are being warned of a possible shutdown for two days before this fiscal year ends in October. It would be a forced furlough for agency workers. The IRS employed 84,189 last year, down from 86,400 in 2013. When attrition is considered, the IRS says it lost between 16,000 and 17,000 employees since 2010. The agency has also been hit with a hiring freeze, and appears to be hiring very few people in IT compared to other agencies.

Comments

One has to wonder

[halivar]

If these upgrades are so critical, why did they wait until THIS year, and especially during tax season, to do them? Sounds like PR, like the public park "closings" where they actually increased staff to keep people out.

Re:One has to wonder

[gcnaddict]

Inquiry Into I.R.S. Lapses Shows No Links to White House

Now piss off.

Re:One has to wonder

[linuxrocks123]

It's even more innocuous than that. The IRS was targeting political groups who applied for 501(c)(3) charity status to make sure they really qualified, because there are restrictions on how political your mission can be if you try to qualify as a charity under 501(c)(3). They targeted both Tea Party and progressive groups because, guess what, those groups tend to engage in potentially prohibited political activity as part of their missions.

They actually targeted more left-leaning than right-leaning groups for scrutiny, but all anyone ever whines about is how The Government oppressed those poor tea partiers.

Re:One has to wonder

[cusco]

You do realize that they also admit to targeting openly liberal groups as well, don't you? They also gave extra attention to any group with the word 'progressive', 'occupy', 'rights' and several other key words in its title. The paper they presented to Congress only mentions Tea Party groups because Congress specifically told them to ONLY report on attention that they gave groups with 'tea party' in the name.

The teabaggers could have easily avoided the entire issue by choosing one of the other non-profit statuses that **do** allow political activities (which they were openly engaged in before even filing the paperwork), but those statuses wouldn't allow them to hide their donors, and the fact that that they're Astroturf groups rather than grass roots.

Re:One has to wonder

[andydread]

the also targeted progressive 501C groups not just tea party 501C groups who were using tax breaks for political activity which is expressly forbidden. Of course the talk radio echo chamber and Fox news failed to inform you of that nuance.... carry on being misinformed. carry on.

Cry me a river

[MikeRT]

The IRS is an unbelievably bloated agency. The FBI, whose jurisdiction is significantly more expansive and demanding, has barely 35,000 employees and a budget that's over $3B less and somehow it gets its work done. A colleague of mine knew some guys who had to work at the IRS as contractors. He said that toward contractors, the IRS is by far the most abusive agency he's ever seen. They routinely expected 60 hour work weeks from the contractors.

In other countries...

[Dareth]

In other countries, the government collects payroll information and prepares a tax statement for each citizen. People review the tax bill and pay if they owe money. Or they amend any information on income and pay the recalculated payment.

In the US, citizens are made to calculate their tax responsibility, or hire someone to do it. The government then tells them if they have their calculation correct with threat of penalty if done incorrectly.