Reference: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/prepare-for-devastating-tax-season-irs-watchdog-says/ar-AA8bCMR Excerpt; The terms "devastating erosion of taxpayer service," "sad state of affairs" and "collective denial" all apply, she wrote in her latest annual report to Congress. Another government program that is broken! Is there anything government can do right? Either government is far too complex, or quite inefficient, or greatly underfunded...actually some of all three. It seems like every government program can use 25-50% more funding yet voters refuse to pay more taxation. Government has exploded in size and complexity all of which equates to higher costs. And, underfunding along with complexity and toss in mismanagement with a healthy dose of voter demands gives us one failed government program after another. For most Americans they just bury their heads in the sand and think all of these issues will simply get better or disappear. Much of this behavior IMO is based on Americans refusing to provide more taxation. BUT, as we see now for decades, the issues and problems and collateral damage DO NOT go away...they fester and worsen until we have a crisis. AND, when we have the crisis du jour, it makes the front page of the newspaper, and gets some banter from presidents and Congress, but nothing is ever done to solve the problems! Our problems are never solved, and IMO cannot be solved because 'we the People' refuse to get involved, are too stupid to get involved, and refuse to fund the government which the People continue to demand. Where all of this leads to I don't know...but I'm guessing it's not a very pretty place...
The problem with the IRS is the tax codes which are overly complex. And the solution is up to our disfunctional government which is bought and paid for by special interests which benefit from the complexity of the tax system. Both parties claim to want tax reform but it never happens. And if you have a way to make our government actually function for the benefit of " The People " this would be a good time to post it.
Well, the easiest way to make an agency of the government dysfunctional is to cut its funding. You can thank the republicans for that and next year it will be even worse because they plan to cut the IRS budget even more, never mind that the IRS is already unable to collect the $60Billion in unpaid taxes that it knows about because it does not have the funding for lawyers to take the cases to court.
Well...the government actually does a lot for 'the People' now so no need to post anything. However, the government does not collect enough taxes, has out of control spending creating deficits and debt forever, is incapable of improving efficiency, is involved in too many areas outside of the USA which does not benefit Americans, and our government mirrors our voters which should be great but voters are equally incapable of making decisions for the best interest of all Americans. Taxes are complex because the function of money is complex. To prove this, it's impossible to have a flat tax system because the first response is about 100 million Americans demand credits and special policy and simply refuse to pay taxes...
The problems with the IRS are not caused by political parties?? These problems with the IRS, and all government problems, exist no matter which party is in office...nothing ever changes because the president, Congress and the voters are all self-serving. We have become incapable of compromise, sacrifice, doing anything for the greater good because it's a me-me-me society today...
Why fund an overly complex, inept, wasteful and corrupted entity? Do you believe they should receive that "25-50% more funding" you say they want? They take a LOT from taxpayers already, and what do they do with it? Squander it, and all too often get us all into trouble with it (military, covert ops, and intelligence spending, and this retarded healthcare bill should probably qualify as trouble-making as well), give it to their already wealthy friends in the private sector (back to 0bamacare already!), and of course create more handout programs to stave off riots and revolution and to buy po' votes. All government knows how to do is create more government. The point you bring up about people being too "stupid" or disinterested is a good one, though we must also consider the context: A system over which nobody has any real control. We have pretty much just two pre-determined choices in each national election in a winner-take-all system. And actually, we also have a new problem: The Internet (and other forms of electronic communication). Here we are complaining on a web forum, where nothing we say matters. In the past, disgruntled people would get together in the real ******ned world and plan out actions to take, and somehow it worked. What are people doing now? Signing Change.org petitions and forming Facebook groups Fat lot of good that'll do.
Obama and others don't care how much tax revenue they receive...they only care about spending and we now have a $17 trillion debt with further deficit spending around $500 billion per year for years to come. However...IMO if we did collect enough taxes to balance the budget, government would still spend another $500 billion per year in debt money...spending is a piece of cake! Every election there are about 160 million Americans who are eligible to vote! Two quick issues; First, too many don't vote. Second, most who do vote will only vote for their political party candidates no matter how unqualified they might be. SO...people not voting and people voting stupid are the precise people who are in control of the USA. It is their actions or lack of actions or stupid actions which create the government we have. I agree with you about these forums but public talk no matter the forum is always a good thing. The root problem remains that most people are incapable of electing or nominating the best candidates and instead simply and blindly support their political party. Whether this is just cultural or ignorant I don't know, but I do know nothing will change until Americans change...and I don't see that happening in my lifetime...
Exactly right with the Libs in office. Create more tax revenue = balance the budget? I don't think so. They'll keep finding more stupid ways to spend more and more. Tax and spend policies have never been a formula for successful growth in the private sector.
If Americans could ever find consensus on what the federal government should and should not be doing, I suspect the cost of government would be even higher than it is today. Even with 10 year plans to revamp public education, or infrastructure, or provide universal health care, or better natural resource management, revamp Medicare and SS, etc. etc. will cost trillion$. And I don't see our current Americans agreeing to a greatly reduced military and Homeland Security. Maybe a nation like the USA needs a $5 trillion government? Americans and corporations today will only fork over about $3.3 trillion in taxation and with this tax level the economy remains tentative so good luck trying to extract enough to balance the budget and pay down debt. As long as there is no 'perceived' problem with accruing more debt, there is no incentive to ever balance the budget and pay down some debt...
The knee jerk anti-tax movement will reach an event horizon when enough people comprehend that not paying enough taxes to fund what the government does for them is the thing that is making their lives unreasonably difficult. We will get there sooner than later because the general nature of being against all taxes is making it impossible for governments at all levels to provide the public goods and services that people expect from their governments, things like roads and bridges and schools and public safety. Rant and rave about government spending all you want but that is not the problem. The problem is that far too many people believe that they have some sort of individual right to refuse to pay for government spending they do not personally approve of despite the fact that they have voted to elect the government that created that spending. Well I have news for you, you do not live in a cave or under a rock but in a huge agglomeration of people, many of whom you may or may not agree with. This huge mass of people have established a whole pile of rules and laws and taxes over the years, some of which you may find personally offensive. It is your free choice to abide with this or not and it is your prerogative to do whatever you can to change what is personally offensive to you. However, your choices do not come without consequences, intended or not they are yours to bear. Blaming the consequences of your own actions on others is cowardice. Blaming the current debt and deficits on Obama is a cowardly act of the anti tax believers because it is a direct and predicted consequence of their actions during the previous administration.
We need to revert back to the burdenless tax system that the founding fathers advocated and implemented in the original Constitution (land value taxation). 1) Land value taxation does not create dead-weight losses on the economy like other taxes do. 2) Land value taxation prevents land monopoly and brings more land into the market (lessening scarcity). 3) Land value taxation is fair because the tax is based upon benefits received (which also mean that the tax is always affordable to the market). 4) Land value taxation as the primary source of government revenue will keep governments competitive and restrained to providing only services and infrastructure that benefit the whole community, by increasing the productivity of the land within the community. A good read: http://earthfreedom.net/lvt-advocates
I disagree that the IRS system is broken because of how the government operates. The only reason why it is broken is beasue Congress has never Fully funded the agency while increasing its responsibilities at the same time. To put it in perspective, let's assume you are in command of a squad of Marines. Your task is to capture, hold and defend a city of 1 million people with a land size of over 75 square miles. In this task, you will fail. Was the reason you failed because your squald was inadequate? Or was it the fact that yo uwere undersized, under equipped, and undermanned to perform the taks.
