An internal review from the IRS reports that its customer service representatives are answering fewer "customer" calls and keeping callers on hold for longer periods.The IRS' response to this finding is even more concerning. Its solution? IRS customer service representatives are directed to stop answering taxpayers' more complicated, and hence more time-consuming, questions.That’s right: The federal government created a terribly complicated tax code and then decided that it will take its time answering taxpayers’ hardest questions about the whole mess. Meanwhile, if you mess up your tax forms, it won't hesitate to call you for answers.What's worse, the IRS hates competition. In 2012, the agency took steps to squeeze out small tax-prep companies by imposing onerous (and unnecessary) education and licensing requirements. Thankfully, as Reason Magazine's Katherine Mangu-Ward explains, “The libertarian legal outfit Institute for Justice helped mom-and-pop tax prep firms challenge the new regs.”In this case, the good guys won. News arrived a few days ago that the "D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the IRS had no legal authority to impose a nationwide licensing scheme on tax-return preparers.” For now, you can at least seek prompt, affordable, tax assistance from private firms while the IRS gets its customer service act together. However, this victory is merely one small riposte against the IRS' disturbing broader power grab.
The response - even from our people - to suggestions of simplifying the tax code to the point where an IRS would no longer be necessary has always been, "It will never happen given Beltway culture." Maybe now that the agency's intrinsic rottenness is ever-more apparent, such a proposal increases in feasibility.
No comments:
Post a Comment