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IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

nextgov.com

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Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#121

Post by jkaplowitz »

ep103 wrote: post #104
mankash666 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to not read articles written by non-tech people. Or, acknowledge the fact that a journalism major can only put in words what he understands of a deeply technical matter that's outside his expertise

Or, suggest that this is a low quality article, and if journalistic enterprises want to report on subject matter, they should have their articles approved by people knowledgeable in that subject matter.

Unfortunately that's true for most journalism. It's just that we techies are not usually subject-matter experts in the many other areas where they make mistakes.

Consistently high-quality in-depth reporting is the exception and is not a threshold most media will accept as a publication bottleneck.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#122

Post by s2g »

dman wrote: post #36
raverbashing wrote: post #34

The question for the industry remains: how do we deal with systems that should be up for 10 years? 25 yrs? 50 yrs? 100 yrs? We didn't even have computers as they exist today 50 years ago. How do we separate business logic in a self-contained way that can be independent of hardware and (from a certain level) software?

How do you create incentive structures for new employees who have to spend months (years?) coming upto speed with giant state machines before they feel remotely confident of the the effect of their changes? For better or for worse, currently the glory is in writing new systems rather than improving existing ones.

You get them doing interesting work on the system as often as you can.

Fixing bugs and babysitting all day isn't going to convince people to stick around. Best you can do is get them something they can try to work with.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#123

Post by s2g »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #120
DrScump wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, it's not just about "glory". If you work in "obsolete" languages/environments, you likely will be perceived as less valuable to your next employer.

This right here is a huge problem with our industry. If you're not jumping from employer to employer every 1.7 years, you're labeled as out of date. It takes some really talented developers to truly understand some of these old systems. They should be given the proper respect they deserve.

No, you can stick around.

I wouldn't consider someone who spent 5 years on AWS, especially if they moved internally, out of date.

Whereas I've done nothing remotely close to where I want to be in about 3 years. I feel very scared about my skills, especially since I'm not even 10 years into my career.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#124

Post by monocasa »

conanbatt wrote: post #112
monocasa wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically it is regressive. The flat amount comes out of rent and food on the low end of your tax base, and luxury on the high end.

Thats sales taxes, but flat income taxes would not be like that.

Uhhh, yes it's exactly like that, regardless of what is getting taxed.

Let's say today I make $24,900/yr. That puts me at the edge of the 20th percentile for 2017. The average effective tax rate for people of my income was -4.7% (or a tax of -$1170)[0]. You're suggesting increasing my taxes to 15%, taking $4905 out of my pocket as compared to today. Now, since I make next to nothing, pretty much everything I make is going to rent, food, and just generally getting by, and I have nearly $5k less real money (or ~20% of my income!!!) in my bank account to make that happen.

[0] - http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/model-estimates/baseline-aver...

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#125

Post by monocasa »

conanbatt wrote: post #110
monocasa wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again, progressive vs regressive has nothing to do with how much you get back in services. That's literally not a component of the definition. You might be confused because deductions are a component of how regressive a tax is.

It is not economics to just look at how a tax is levied, and not how it is spent. The combination is a must to actually make a meaningful argument about how taxes should be.

It is absolutely a component of economics, just not the only piece needed for a comprehensive tax policy.

You're literally arguing against the accepted definition of a term.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#126

Post by danso »

cptskippy wrote: post #54

I feel like the authors of this article are being very misleading by using broader terms where they could be more specific, like using system where they could instead say software. The IRS isn't running 60 year old hardware, and the failure was in hardware that was just 18 months old. But because the IRS is running software that is 60 years old, the authors can claim the "system" dates back to the 1960s. It's also cl…

FWIW, the IRS.gov IT docs make reference to "Assembler Language" as if it were a proper noun:

https://www.irs.gov/irm/part2/irm_02-005-003

> The scope of this directive is Servicewide. This includes software developed by contractors. Where the guidelines apply to Assembler Language, COBOL, C Language, C++ programming, and Java programming, these guidelines shall be followed respectively.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#127

Post by conanbatt »

monocasa wrote: post #124
conanbatt wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats sales taxes, but flat income taxes would not be like that.

Uhhh, yes it's exactly like that, regardless of what is getting taxed. Let's say today I make $24,900/yr. That puts me at the edge of the 20th percentile for 2017. The average effective tax rate for people of my income was -4.7% (or a tax of -$1170)[0]. You're suggesting increasing my taxes to 15%, taking $4905 out of my pocket as compared to today. Now, since I make next to nothing, pretty much everything I make is…

Hah. You are making the case that a flat tax is regressive because current income taxes are progressive. So moving from progressive to flat is regressive.

Its a tautological affirmation on progressive taxes being progressive. A flat tax would make a $24,900 pay $3,735, and if you made $249,000 you would pay $3735, your taxes increase just as proportional to your income. Its just..flat.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#128

Post by killjoywashere »

ep103 wrote: post #104
mankash666 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to not read articles written by non-tech people. Or, acknowledge the fact that a journalism major can only put in words what he understands of a deeply technical matter that's outside his expertise

Or, suggest that this is a low quality article, and if journalistic enterprises want to report on subject matter, they should have their articles approved by people knowledgeable in that subject matter.

Or, fund education and set higher standards in education so you can rationally expect typical journalists are capable of diving into technical issues.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#129

Post by monocasa »

conanbatt wrote: post #127
monocasa wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh, yes it's exactly like that, regardless of what is getting taxed. Let's say today I make $24,900/yr. That puts me at the edge of the 20th percentile for 2017. The average effective tax rate for people of my income was -4.7% (or a tax of -$1170)[0]. You're suggesting increasing my taxes to 15%, taking $4905 out of my pocket as compared to today. Now, since I make next to nothing, pretty much everything I make is…

Hah. You are making the case that a flat tax is regressive because current income taxes are progressive. So moving from progressive to flat is regressive. Its a tautological affirmation on progressive taxes being progressive. A flat tax would make a $24,900 pay $3,735, and if you made $249,000 you would pay $3735, your taxes increase just as proportional to your income. Its just..flat.

No I'm making the argument that a flat tax is regressive because the utilitarian value of a dollar isn't anywhere near linear with total income.

With a flat tax:

* On the high end you're taking from ability to have luxuries.

* On the low end you're taking from the ability to pay rent and put enough food on your table for your children.

Re: IRS’ 60-Year-Old IT System Failed on Tax Day Due to New Hardware

#130

Post by heartbreak »

DrScump wrote: post #117
rbanffy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open-source it and we'll help with the fixes.

That would be a huge exploit/privacy risk.

Right because that's what we say about the Linux kernel too, right? If IRS is the maintainer, they still review changes. And so do all of us. If someone slips in an exploit, we'll catch it the same way every other open source project does.
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