Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 182 posts

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

#131

Post by sandwitches »

fragmede wrote: post #33
more_corn wrote: post #28

In a quintessential example of late stage capitalism you can pay a service to get you to the front of the line. They DDOS the irs phone lines and give every available slot to a paying customer. At the expense of making it impossible for normal people to get through. This behavior is not treated as illegal or abusive by the powers that be.

Pay a service to get to the front of the line to get on a phone call with the IRS? Not to expose myself as a member of the burgoise or something, but I pay a CPA to deal with that entire problem.

You don't find it a little unfair that doing something the government makes you do is so Byzantine and fraught with error that there is an entire cottage industry around doing it? When the only reason it's so awful is because of policy choices largely out of our control?

What if we deliberately slowed your car down, threw our hands up because "it is what it is", and then said you could fix it by paying $500? Wow, we solved the problem!

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

#132

Post by sandwitches »

travoc wrote: post #75
cchance wrote: post #34

[flagged]

It’s been a while since the Republicans controlled congress and the presidency.

Google "filibuster" and "US Senate", and then maybe you'll understand why your statement is in bad faith.

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

#133

Post by sandwitches »

greenavocado wrote: post #3
millitzer wrote: post #2

Well, there's a problem that needs a solution. Plus, a government contract. I wonder if anyone can come up with a LLM for simple tax issues.

[flagged]

If you're kidding, it's not funny. If you're serious, that's a joke.

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

#134

Post by janalsncm »

HillRat wrote: post #5

The IRS is a perennial budgeting football for Congress, even though it's one of the few agencies for whom increasing their budget creates positive net revenue for the federal government; its enforcement arm is down 30% in staffing since 2010, with predictably dismal results. As an anecdotal comparison, I had a fairly long-running issue years ago with the IRS over a minor problem (some expenditures got posted to one f…

The government could fix this issue. The problem is, the people who care about this (regular taxpayers) don’t matter. Or rather, people who care about getting this fixed haven’t shown themselves to be a significant voting block.

I recommend anyone who calls their representatives to get their situation sorted out include “propose or vote for legislation to fix this or I will not vote for you” as an ultimatum. If you’re going to vote for them either way (or not vote for them either way) then it makes no difference if they fix the problem or not.

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

#135

Post by anon291 »

bxparks wrote: post #89
anon291 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

I'm not 100% sure of the specifics, but I'm pretty sure you get a professional on the phone at the end of the day, not your representative. The incentives are just properly aligned.

I am a very conservative person, but I've lived in deep red districts and deep blue ones, and I've honestly never had a problem with any. If anything, I've noticed that the representatives I complain to a lot want to help more because they think they can get another voter by simply being decent. That's if the rep even gets involved.

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

#136

Post by chrisco255 »

ssnover wrote: post #103
chrisco255 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better strategy would be to do away with income tax altogether and replace with something easier to comply with and enforce like a Federal sales tax. States that run on sales tax alone need only to collect revenue from businesses, which shrinks their staffing requirements. And since it's a straightforward % of sales, it's easier to audit as well.

These are not 1:1 replaceable. Income tax is progressively structured where higher earners pay a larger percentage in income that falls into higher income brackets. Sales tax is a flat percentage which varies based on item category, not the cost of the item.

Of course they are. 7 states in the union operate just fine without income tax including Washington, Texas, Florida, and Tennessee. People are net migrating to states without income tax. Income tax brackets are an excessive complication that are completely unnecessary for running government. You can simply make essentials like groceries and tuition tax free, and keep everything else a flat %. It works fine.

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

#137

Post by pembrook »

enragedcacti wrote: post #112
pembrook wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the IRS budget since the 80s hasn't decreased on a per-capita, inflation-adjusted basis, then something has gone horribly wrong. Why the heck would we want tax collection to get more inefficient every year? This one of the most misguided narratives I see from people of the other "specific US political party" to the one you're referring to. As another commenter pointed out, if the transition away from cash and self…

1) It has. 2) Tax enforcement is a cat and mouse game, efficiency from automatic data collection could be offset by any number of things like changes to the tax code or more advanced methods for tax evasion. 3) Efficiency relative to the 1980s is way less important than the efficiency of each marginal dollar. Refusing to fund the IRS over its efficiency is like skipping work because you need to find a faster route to…

I know big company/government types often (incorrectly) conflate "size of budget" with "amount of work being done."

But this disincentivizes productivity and is a sign of a broken system of endlessly expanding do-nothing bureaucracy.

The budget for [insert government agency] should never being growing steadily with population growth + inflation, assuming similar scope of work. This would mean government is wholly incapable of productivity, which would be a terrible outcome for the citizens who fund it.

What evidence do you have that the amount of tax evasion on a per capita basis is more prevalent today than it was in the past? All numbers I've seen for Americans is that tax evasion has been reduced dramatically. Americans can't even hold money abroad anymore without it being automatically reported by every single bank in the world due to FATCA.

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

#138

Post by Caligatio »

anon291 wrote: post #74
gmd63 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's thinking inside the box of extremely low-effort propaganda. The IRS is critical to stopping fraud and making sure everyone plays by the rules. Currently, we have folks not respecting the rules and getting more economic influence than they deserve. The current climate is an effective tax on honesty. As long as budget increases to the IRS increase revenue to the government, they should keep growing. If you take…

> As long as budget increases to the IRS increase revenue to the government, they should keep growing. Why? The government is not a business. They should not be interested in 'raising revenue'. They should be interested in helping their constituents grow rich; not taking their wealth.

The US Government has been doing deficit spending and the national debt continues to grow at an alarming pace. To fix this, we can raise revenue and/or reduce spending. The easiest thing is to just improve enforcement of the existing tax laws (which are already agreed upon) via increasing the resources available to the IRS

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

#139

Post by junar »

idontwantthis wrote: post #87

My story; Around 3 years ago I sent in the form to get a tax return duplicate and the required $43 check. They deposited the check and never sent me the return. I never reached anyone on the phone. I eventually resolved the dispute I was having with other documentation. IRS owes me $43.

For future reference, you can get a tax return transcript from the IRS online, for free.

https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript

If whoever you were dealing with was refusing to accept a transcript, perhaps it would be good to name and shame them.

Post reply on HN