I would argue that having to file taxes through a 3rd party accountant or service is not only forced commerce but also broken glass economics. Looks like it helps the economy by creating jobs but the job is redundant and does not create anything of value. Where are crimes more likely to occur, a city with 10,000 or 1 million? Where are financial crimes more likely to occur, people that make $10,000 a year or people t…
Conventional wisdom is that if one can fund the IRS with one extra dollar, and they use that dollar to collect two dollars more taxes (from evaders), than that was a good way to spend taxpayers money. Many economists don't agree though. If you care about economic success of the country, the goal isn't 'collect as many taxes as possible'. The goal is to make the citizens wealthier in real terms. Effort your citizens p…
But the goal of taxation isn't to maximize the country's economic success or overall wealth.
It's to fund necessary government services (schools, courts, police, military, etc.) and to redistribute wealth (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.).
We only want to maximize national wealth after we've funded government services fully and redistributed wealth (and sufficiently protect the environment, protect workers, etc.).
So if funding the IRS gets you back more money, that's always good, because it's by definition going to the things that we have democratically decided are a higher priority than maximizing national wealth. And if we democratically decide that we're spending too much on services or redistributing too much, then we cut those intentionally -- not "accidentally" by underfunding the IRS.
Even if under-collecting taxes is good economic policy by the extremely narrow measure of GDP, it's terrible national policy. It's like saying that accidentally redirecting an extra $500 per person to the military is good military policy. I mean, sure it might be. But that doesn't mean it's good national policy.