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Millions of Taxpayers Call the IRS for Help. Two-Thirds Don't Reach Anyone

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Re: Millions of Taxpayers Call the IRS for Help. Two-Thirds Don't Reach Anyone

#121

Post by Caligatio »

robertlagrant wrote: post #104
mywittyname wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why the heck would we want tax collection to get more inefficient every year? There is a subset of Republicans who believe that taxes should be painful. They should be constantly front-of-mind for every American. It keeps people from forgetting about income taxes and having them fade from public discourse.

> There is a subset of Republicans who believe that taxes should be painful Can you cite this?

https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2018/07/18/tax-filing-...

Scroll down to the section that mentions Americans for Tax Reform and links to the presentation: Doing taxes keeps citizens aware of the tax burden imposed upon them by the government. A Return-Free scheme would allow the government to raise revenues invisibly

In case you're not aware of Norquist, https://gop-waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/1...: The paradox for taxpayers is that visible, painful taxes are the taxpayer's best protection against runaway government spending and taxes.

Re: Millions of Taxpayers Call the IRS for Help. Two-Thirds Don't Reach Anyone

#123

Post by sandwitches »

Zelphyr wrote: post #45
jmclnx wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had friends and relatives who worked for the US IRS in the 80s, they all would say the IRS was the one place that budgets will never be cut, so the felt far more secure than I did in Tech. Little did they know the top 1% would get with one specific US Political Party to cut the IRS budget so thy can all cheat on their taxes. It is cheaper for them to hire lawyers than to pay their "fair share".

[flagged]

I see several massive I-beams in your argument that are buckling due to a lack of support. Mind shoring them up with sources, boss?

Re: Millions of Taxpayers Call the IRS for Help. Two-Thirds Don't Reach Anyone

#124

Post by godelski »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #106
bxparks wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This assumes that the Representative is competent, and believes that they act for the good of all people in their district, not just the ones who believe in their version of God. This not true across the country, and particularly, not in the district that I live in. I would never call my Representative. My Senators, not too bad, but there are only 2 of them for the entire state.

You might be surprised. I don't have any direct experience to speak of, but I've heard that some reps whose rhetoric would make you think they want tens of millions of Americans imprisoned, deported, or dead turn out to have surprisingly good staffers handling constituent services.

> have surprisingly good staffers

This is it. Calling your representative almost never results in you actually directly communicating with your representative (for better or worse). You will always get their staffers, who may have completely different moral and political agendas.

Re: Millions of Taxpayers Call the IRS for Help. Two-Thirds Don't Reach Anyone

#125

Post by janalsncm »

nebula8804 wrote: post #102
janalsncm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a good book “The Dictator’s Handbook” that proposed the Selectorate Theory that explains this, among other things. The complex tax code is a feature, not a bug. And I don’t just mean that Intuit is profiting off of the complexity, although that is also true. Politicians care about staying in office, rewarding their supporters, and maybe implementing prosocial policies. In that order. So tax cuts for the wealt…

All of this is enabled by the ability to print money and not have the painful consequences that other countries have to deal with. What happens when this is no longer the case? All this old cruft (farm bill for example) will cause a collapse. What would that even look like?

These principles are still true in countries that don’t control their currency. In fact being bankrupt is one of the most guaranteed ways of losing power. The issue is, any politician who says they’re going to spend less and tax more will lose to the guy who says not to worry about it.

That’s why every government loves increasing the national debt.

Re: Millions of Taxpayers Call the IRS for Help. Two-Thirds Don't Reach Anyone

#126

Post by sandwitches »

anon291 wrote: post #71
mdorazio wrote: post #47

I’ll share my story. The IRS incorrectly sent me a fine for over a thousand dollars claiming I had filed late. I tried calling them 9 times on different days to dispute it. Within a minute of opening, end of day, middle of the day, didn’t matter. Not even a wait line, just “sorry try later.” I finally gave up and paid the damn thing then got a refund for the fine over a year later when I guess they figured out it was…

If you are an American citizen, just call your US representative. They will have you on the phone with an actual person at the IRS in a day or two. Literally, I've learned this lesson the hard way. The moment I have to wait more than an hour or so to figure out a government service or agency, I immediately lodge a formal complaint with my representative. They have a large staff dedicated to constituent services, and…

I shouldn't have to explain why this isn't a viable long-term solution, right?

Re: Millions of Taxpayers Call the IRS for Help. Two-Thirds Don't Reach Anyone

#127

Post by kube-system »

bpodgursky wrote: post #83
kube-system wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most observed weaknesses of LLMs is that they have no clue when they're dealing with a difficult problem. There's no doubt that throwing an LLM at the problem would likely fix many simple issues. The question is whether or not it can accurately triage a difficult issue, which is a task they tend to struggle with. When accuracy matters, answering a question incorrectly puts a person in an even worse situati…

ChatGPT is not trained to "escalate" an issue because there's nobody to escalate to. You can get this to happen pretty reliably via prompting, and with even light retraining basically 100%. And here's the thing: most front-line customer service is also clueless about difficult problems. The IRS cannot pull 10,000 seasonal experts on the line, they are going to hire barely-trained part-time accountants who also flub h…

But human brains have a more developed and reliable means of expressing uncertainty, which is still a challenge for LLMs.

e.g. part-time front-line customer service will prefix a statement with "uhhh..." if they don't actually know what they're talking about, even if they do have trouble answering accurately.

Re: Millions of Taxpayers Call the IRS for Help. Two-Thirds Don't Reach Anyone

#128

Post by sandwitches »

noodlesUK wrote: post #48

This isn't even just a US/IRS problem. It's here in the UK too [1]. Governments have been axing customer service budgets for years now, but IMO it's a foolish choice. Bad customer service from the government leads to more errors impacting citizens' lives, which results in more lawsuits and other issues. You ultimately need the ability to sort out problems, and it's better and cheaper for that to happen earlier. [1] h…

It's almost like it's intentional.

Re: Millions of Taxpayers Call the IRS for Help. Two-Thirds Don't Reach Anyone

#129

Post by sandwitches »

matwood wrote: post #115
withinboredom wrote: post #90

The IRS still owes me a shit load of money (I live overseas). If I did this, they’d probably figure out how to drag me back to the US, freeze my assets, and make my life hell. They just hang up on me before I even get ahold of a human. I call once a week for two years now. Now they owe me for international calls too, and I am trying to find a lawyer to sue them. If anyone knows anyone, my email is in my bio.

Living overseas doesn’t necessarily mean they owe you money. But if they really do owe you, you’re best bet is to hire a tax accountant to file the paperwork. It might take time to get reviewed, but it will get reviewed. And, if you are correct, they will cut you a check (with interest even).

Will they cover the fee for the accountant to fix their own mistake?

Re: Millions of Taxpayers Call the IRS for Help. Two-Thirds Don't Reach Anyone

#130

Post by throwaway48476 »

I had to get a letter from the IRS. It should have been as simple as clicking a button and giving me a download link but instead it just said "server error". So I had to send them a letter which only got a reply on the 3rd try.

Maybe if they had computer systems that actually worked people wouldn't need to call them?

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