8,500 IT workers in the IRS is insane.
They barely have any products, and they contract externally for so much other work
IRS lost 40% of IT staff, 80% of tech leaders in 'efficiency' shakeup
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Re: IRS lost 40% of IT staff, 80% of tech leaders in 'efficiency' shakeup
#12Defunding the IRS is nothing but an effort to reduce tax enforcement. People that have relatively straightforward finances can be trivially audited in a formulaic way with data that's on hand - a lack of human auditing resources tends to benefit those with more complex finances which also tend to be the people with a lot of money who can afford to lobby for less enforcement funding. Also for reference, in 2024 the IR…
Implied in your statement - it benefits those who can create more complex financial situations. Often the complexity of the situation is largely synthetic.
Re: IRS lost 40% of IT staff, 80% of tech leaders in 'efficiency' shakeup
#13I'm starting to realize that an LLM isn't gonna take my job, but it's beginning to make the job aggravating enough to quit anyhow. So many managers have decided they're going to have an AI Miracle and aren't interested in hearing otherwise, no matter what staff tells them.
Does this have anything to do with AI push? It is fairly straightforward that billionaire class cooperating with Trump admin dont want to pay taxes. Republicans want IRS incapable so that tax fraud flourish. Bonus point is that they will be able to pretend worry about it with minorities.
Re: IRS lost 40% of IT staff, 80% of tech leaders in 'efficiency' shakeup
#14Defunding the IRS is nothing but an effort to reduce tax enforcement. People that have relatively straightforward finances can be trivially audited in a formulaic way with data that's on hand - a lack of human auditing resources tends to benefit those with more complex finances which also tend to be the people with a lot of money who can afford to lobby for less enforcement funding. Also for reference, in 2024 the IR…
Implied in your statement - it benefits those who can create more complex financial situations. Often the complexity of the situation is largely synthetic.
I agree that the complex financials are generally intentionally created for sheltering and that complexity is only possible because of our overly complex tax code which has been made significantly more complex by tax preparer lobbyists from Intuit and others.
Re: IRS lost 40% of IT staff, 80% of tech leaders in 'efficiency' shakeup
#158,500 IT workers in the IRS is insane. They barely have any products, and they contract externally for so much other work
They have 150 million paying "customers" (not including businesses) and bring in $5 trillion+ yearly.
Re: IRS lost 40% of IT staff, 80% of tech leaders in 'efficiency' shakeup
#168,500 IT workers in the IRS is insane. They barely have any products, and they contract externally for so much other work
The public sector is where you need 12 people (and a project manager) to build an Access database.
Re: IRS lost 40% of IT staff, 80% of tech leaders in 'efficiency' shakeup
#17Starve the beast in action. The less employees the IRS has, the lower the chance there are enough staff on hand to audit the truly uber rich properly.
The low income (under 25k) with EITC, were the largest audited group with 298,485 of 626,204 audits performed in 2022. The rest of those earning under 200k had 250,391 audits.[]
48% of audits were under 25k income. 87% of audits were people under 200k income.
Kind of interferes with the idea these audits were all about going after the uber rich. They were way more about going after the poor than they were about going after the rich.
[] l IRS management audit reports obtained via FOIA by via TRAC / https://tracreports.org/reports/706/
Re: IRS lost 40% of IT staff, 80% of tech leaders in 'efficiency' shakeup
#18I'm starting to realize that an LLM isn't gonna take my job, but it's beginning to make the job aggravating enough to quit anyhow. So many managers have decided they're going to have an AI Miracle and aren't interested in hearing otherwise, no matter what staff tells them.
Does this have anything to do with AI push? It is fairly straightforward that billionaire class cooperating with Trump admin dont want to pay taxes. Republicans want IRS incapable so that tax fraud flourish. Bonus point is that they will be able to pretend worry about it with minorities.
> Republicans want IRS incapable so that tax fraud flourish.
That's wildly hyperbolic.
Re: IRS lost 40% of IT staff, 80% of tech leaders in 'efficiency' shakeup
#19The thing that makes me nervous is the statement that they plan to use AI. AI? The thing that is mathematically incapable of perfection, on finance information, for which perfection is table stakes? Not to mention all the privacy issues (although that boat has sailed).
The people in charge have a pathological hatred for the IRS. AI is just an excuse to continue destroying the capabilities of the IRS. In the meantime, they’ll keep borrowing to fund the government while telling everyone it’s ok because they slashed programs that make up a tiny portion of the budget. This can go on until there is a major economic shock related to US debt, but honestly, most of them will be dead by the time that happens.
Re: IRS lost 40% of IT staff, 80% of tech leaders in 'efficiency' shakeup
#208,500 IT workers in the IRS is insane. They barely have any products, and they contract externally for so much other work
They have 150 million paying "customers" (not including businesses) and bring in $5 trillion+ yearly.
Consider that many millions of those "customers" need to hire a professional for hundreds/thousands of dollars to properly interact with the IRS.