IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business • Hacker News Board

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#31

Post by luckydata » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

txsoftwaredev wrote: post #26

Spellman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally they don't harass people unless something seems amiss and there is a large enough discrepancy to justify it. And there's eventually a marginal tipping point where more money spent in audits won't net more recovered revenue. Generally the smaller the fry, the less you can recover from them.

Unless you were a conservative group a few years back. 'The controversy began in 2013 when an IRS official admitted the agency had been aggressively scrutinizing groups with names such as "Tea Party" and "Patriots."' https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes-for-...

because they were abusing their tax exempt status. But that's the part you probably don't like to say out loud.

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#32

Post by utopian3 » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #24

nostromo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Anyone opposing more police officers and equipment is looking to break the law.” Just as I don’t want a bored cop on every street corner, I also don’t want the IRS to be staffed to maximize revenue. It’s a balance.

That's because when cops have nothing better to do, they harass and assault people for all sorts of subjective made up infractions. I do not expect a properly staffed tax agency to.

The IRS has (this decade) targeted specific institutions by their affiliations:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy

(Read the fourth paragraph of this page)

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#33

Post by kurthr » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #20

Kapura wrote: post #14

Greed is winning in America. Any person or political party that is trying to reduce staffing for a tax collection agency is trying to get away with tax fraud or they are working for somebody who is. It is far past the time to recognise this.

“Anyone opposing more police officers and equipment is looking to break the law.” Just as I don’t want a bored cop on every street corner, I also don’t want the IRS to be staffed to maximize revenue. It’s a balance.

Yeah, the people "getting away with it" in this case aren't those paying withholding or even mostly individuals... they're corporations bilking the government and every other taxpayer. It's more like cutting back on the FBI when there's an outbreak of organized crime...

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#34

Post by nostromo » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #24

nostromo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Anyone opposing more police officers and equipment is looking to break the law.” Just as I don’t want a bored cop on every street corner, I also don’t want the IRS to be staffed to maximize revenue. It’s a balance.

That's because when cops have nothing better to do, they harass and assault people for all sorts of subjective made up infractions. I do not expect a properly staffed tax agency to.

> they harass and assault people for all sorts of subjective made up infractions.

The IRS does this all the time.

And unlike criminal law, the burden of proof is on the accused, not the state.

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#35

Post by nostromo » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 6:05 PM UTC

kurthr wrote: post #33

nostromo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Anyone opposing more police officers and equipment is looking to break the law.” Just as I don’t want a bored cop on every street corner, I also don’t want the IRS to be staffed to maximize revenue. It’s a balance.

Yeah, the people "getting away with it" in this case aren't those paying withholding or even mostly individuals... they're corporations bilking the government and every other taxpayer. It's more like cutting back on the FBI when there's an outbreak of organized crime...

The problem is Congress, not the IRS.

Most corporations pay the amount of tax they owe under the law, but the law is written to allow tax evasion. The IRS can’t do anything about this.

The fix is to close several well known loopholes.

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#36

Post by specialist » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 6:06 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #20

Kapura wrote: post #14

Greed is winning in America. Any person or political party that is trying to reduce staffing for a tax collection agency is trying to get away with tax fraud or they are working for somebody who is. It is far past the time to recognise this.

“Anyone opposing more police officers and equipment is looking to break the law.” Just as I don’t want a bored cop on every street corner, I also don’t want the IRS to be staffed to maximize revenue. It’s a balance.

"It’s a balance."

What would that look like?

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#37

Post by moate » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 6:07 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #20

Kapura wrote: post #14

Greed is winning in America. Any person or political party that is trying to reduce staffing for a tax collection agency is trying to get away with tax fraud or they are working for somebody who is. It is far past the time to recognise this.

“Anyone opposing more police officers and equipment is looking to break the law.” Just as I don’t want a bored cop on every street corner, I also don’t want the IRS to be staffed to maximize revenue. It’s a balance.

>>I also don’t want the IRS to be staffed to maximize revenue

The issue there isn't the IRS though, it's the tax code. The IRS is absolutely a department that needs to be staffed to maximize their revenue.

If you have an easy to navigate tax-code that doesn't require a doctoral understanding of economics, then there's not a problem for the everyday person (TBH you can also say the same thing about the law in general).

>>“Anyone opposing more police officers and equipment is breaking the law” is similar to your argument.

Here's a better statement: I believe the people who are most actively working and spending money to depower the IRS are those who seek the most to gain by hiding their financial doings. They seek to deregulate industry as a whole in the name of corporate gains while simultaneously infiltrating various branches of the government to further this agenda. These people are doing so in an (successful) effort to push more wealth from the majority into the hands of a minority. I believe this is bad for society as a whole.

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#38

Post by mtmail » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 6:07 PM UTC

abtinf wrote: post #19

The paper itself is locked behind a paywall. No mention of the methodology in either the linked article or the paper's abstract. No indication of the overall economic effects. This is non-knowledge.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:r_DDSE... has the full content

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#39

Post by xboxnolifes » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 6:08 PM UTC

Spellman wrote: post #16

devoply wrote: post #6

> IRS is auditing fewer tax returns from corporations because it has fewer people and resources available to identify potential errors and follow up on questionable tax returns On one hand I do want businesses to pay their fair share. On the other hand I don't want to encourage massive tax agencies which must justify their numbers by auditing and harassing as many people as possible. Often small businesses that don't…

Generally they don't harass people unless something seems amiss and there is a large enough discrepancy to justify it. And there's eventually a marginal tipping point where more money spent in audits won't net more recovered revenue. Generally the smaller the fry, the less you can recover from them.

I was much younger and not involved in the finances, but my family's business was audited 4(ish?) times in under a decade, which is essentially a "guilty under proven innocent" scenario where we had to prove we didn't owe the money ($50k+) that the IRS claimed we did or we had to pay it. Each audit was easily a hundred hours which we would always end up paying nothing or having the IRS owe us money in the end for.

Though, since I wasn't aware of our financials, for all I know my parents could have just been poorly keeping track of the numbers which led to these issues.

Re: IRS budget cuts cost $34.3B in lost revenue from big business

#40

Post by avanderveen » Tue, Aug 20, 2019, 6:08 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #20

Kapura wrote: post #14

Greed is winning in America. Any person or political party that is trying to reduce staffing for a tax collection agency is trying to get away with tax fraud or they are working for somebody who is. It is far past the time to recognise this.

“Anyone opposing more police officers and equipment is looking to break the law.” Just as I don’t want a bored cop on every street corner, I also don’t want the IRS to be staffed to maximize revenue. It’s a balance.

I feel like I'm not understanding your comment.

Is it that you don't want IRS employees sitting around doing nothing?

Because if this resulted in losing $34B in revenue, it doesn't like they were sitting around doing nothing.