What is going on here?
Is it appropriate for IRS Agents before, during and after employment with the IRS to be taking secret, private payments while on the job?
That’s exactly the allegation surfacing today.
You know what never made any sense to me?
The IRS reporting system makes no sense.
You have to keep all your records…
You have to go hire a CPA or accountant to make sense of them all…
You have to either understand the voluminous Tax Code or pay a hell of a lot of money to someone who does and interpret that code to your situation…
You have to submit all of that to the IRS and calculate how much YOU owe to the (corrupt) Government…
And if you do it wrong, they’ll audit you and tell you that you did it wrong!
What a fucked up system!
Sorry for the language, but no other word will do in that sentence.
Totally f-ed up!
So much brain damage…
So much loss of productivity…
So many things that make ZERO sense…
And for what?
So you can take my money and ship it off to Ukraine?
Are you kidding me?
Well, on top of all of that today comes word that approximately 500 IRS agents (and counting) have been taking payments from the private sector.
Say what now?
Take a look:
IRS agents are getting paid by private accounting firms: watchdog https://t.co/5agXiDUzLk pic.twitter.com/0hJ3pQJEZt
— The Hill (@thehill) August 30, 2023
And:
Large accounting firms and corporations have paid almost 500 Internal Revenue Service agents before, during, or after federal employment, the agency's internal watchdog found. https://t.co/twNQbe2A2y https://t.co/gWjcp2jUHI
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) August 30, 2023
From Newsmax:
Large accounting firms and corporations have paid almost 500 Internal Revenue Service agents before, during, or after federal employment, the agency’s internal watchdog found.
The Hill reported Tuesday that an analysis released by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found 496 receiving incomes from private accounting firms and corporations “either prior to joining, during their time at, or after leaving the IRS.”
According to the report, the IRS employees involved came from the chief counsel’s office, the appeals office, and the agency’s large business and international division. They included 255 paid by big corporations and 241 by large accounting firms.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., requested the agency to investigate the “revolving door” between the IRS and private businesses in the accounting industry.
“As Acting Treasury Inspector General and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, you each already have the statutory power and responsibility to investigate allegations of misconduct with respect to the administration of programs at the Treasury Department and the IRS, including through access to any relevant records and subpoena power,” they told the watchdog. “The questions raised by giant accounting firms’ use of the revolving door to benefit their clients falls squarely within your missions to ‘promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness’ and ‘prevent and detect fraud and abuse’ in the programs and operations of the Treasury Department and IRS.”
And more here, from The Hill:
Those IRS employees were from the IRS’s chief counsel’s office, the appeals office, and the large business and international division, which is now in the spotlight as the IRS gears up with new funding to collect more in taxes from wealthy people and big companies.
Of the 496 IRS employees the TIGTA has its eye on, 241 got paid by a large accounting firm and 255 by a large corporation.
The report follows a request by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) to look into the “revolving door” between the IRS and the accounting industry.
“As Acting Treasury Inspector General and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, you each already have the statutory power and responsibility to investigate allegations of misconduct with respect to the administration of programs at the Treasury Department and the IRS, including through access to any relevant records and subpoena power,” the members of Congress told the TIGTA.
“The questions raised by giant accounting firms’ use of the revolving door to benefit their clients falls squarely within your missions to ‘promote economy, efficiency and effectiveness’ and ‘prevent and detect fraud and abuse’ in the programs and operations of the Treasury Department and IRS,” they said.
But the metaphor of the “revolving door,” which is used to describe the common practice of technically proficient and well-connected government workers switching to private industry and vice versa, may not provide an accurate image of what’s actually going on at the agency.
Recent reporting by The New York Times has revealed a strategic process of embedding private-sector rule writers within the Treasury to produce government policy that is friendly to big business.
This can result in a long-studied phenomenon known as “regulatory capture,” whereby industries effectively become their own regulators by getting too chummy with the government.
“Their tax lawyers take senior jobs at the Treasury Department, where they write policies that are frequently favorable to their former corporate clients, often with the expectation that they will soon return to their old employers. The firms welcome them back with loftier titles and higher pay,” the Times reported in 2021.
The TIGTA made clear in its Tuesday report it’s aware of this kind of behavior.
“Processes are in place to identify and address potential conflicts of interest in large corporate tax administration,” the agency said.
Does this make any sense to you?
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