United We Stand, Divided We Fall

The US Treasury Inspector General’s Report on the IRS’s Automated Collection System, issued September 18, 2014, demonstrates that the IRS budget cuts are beginning to bite and decrease US Federal Government tax receipts. The report is entitled ‘Declining Resources have Contributed to Unfavorable Trends in Several Key Automated Collection System Business Results.’ First for some background. The Automated Collection System (ACS) is responsible for answering incoming taxpayers calls and working the delinquent taxpayer files; i.e., they are responsible for securing unfiled tax returns and collecting unpaid taxes by communicating with the taxpaying public. Because of budget cuts, the staffing levels in this division have been reduced by 39%. In addition, due to identity theft and its effect on tax refund requests, another 400 workers have been diverted. This has caused the inventory of delinquent tax filings to increase by $4 billion since 2010 and the collections in this area to be reduced by $400 million. It also is responsible for write offs increasing by $350 million. Finally, enforcement actions have been reduced also. The losses to the Federal Treasury are at least $1 billion annually and could be as much as $4 billion in this one area alone. These losses are accelerating as the IRS gets further and further behind.
It is time for the IRS to get out of politics and for the President and the Congress to properly fund the IRS so it can collect the monies owed the federal government. We who pay our fair share of taxes faithfully deserve to know that all taxpayers are doing the same or are being compelled to do so.
Harry Pukay-Martin