Can we please audit the IRS?
There is a short opinion piece in the Washington Times today about the IRS. It’s not just about the agency targeting conservative groups for scrutiny after applying for tax-exempt status, it’s about the systemic problems at the bloated federal agency charged with implementing the most complex tax code imaginable.
There is no sign the tax code is going to get any less complex, just the opposite in fact. At some point the weight of the tax code will hopefully crumble the entire agency, but while increasingly large lists of employees, middle managers and executives try to hold up the weight of what very well may be a million regulations and rules, nobody seems willing to manage the staff themselves. Nobody is willing to lead. It’s always the fault of some unknown sinister force, never to be identified.
From the Washington Times.
The federal government was meant to be understated in the way it does business: Civil servants give up opportunities in the private sector to selflessly toil in the public interest. In return, they’re all but fireproof. The actual behavior of the selfless servants at the Internal Revenue Service says it’s not working.
Given the scrutiny applied to the agency’s mistreatment of conservative groups, the Treasury’s inspector general decided it was also a good idea to see how IRS agents have been using agency credit cards. In a suitably understated tone, the auditors concluded the “purchase-card program lacks consistent oversight to identify and address inappropriate use.”
At stake is $108 million that IRS agents have put on their government-issued plastic over the past two years. The audit found that the tax men were letting the good times roll on the public dime, “entertaining foreign officials” and using “purchase cards to pay for multiple lunches, dinners and related alcohol purchases.”
This disorganized mess would never stand in a public sector organization the size of the IRS. (Is there one?) Never more than now is it clear the IRS needs to be totally and completely destroyed. Gone.
We need a Fair Tax or a Flat Tax.
3 Comments
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Much as Howie Carr proclaims about illegals (“I just want to be treated like an illegal!!”), I would like citizens to be able to plead the Fifth Amendment, and not be able to find “the responsible party” when an audit goes south.
?
Two words: flat tax.
Well- akin to Holder investigating himself they’ll probably “relent” and have the IRS audit itself…. and the liberal pawns will be placated.
Better question to ask: “Can we please abolish the IRS and be done with one of the many police state organizations in this country?”