Make a Juggernaut, Get Run Over
Monday, October 20, 2014
Conservative commentator Bruce Bialosky describes some
particularly asinine scheduling practiced by the Internal Revenue Service:
... [W]hen we received this message from our tax software service we were quite taken aback; "The Internal Revenue Service's electronic filing system will be shut down for maintenance from October 11-13 reopening sometime on October 14th." I contacted some colleagues who were just as stunned. They expressed they were mystified as to what the IRS was thinking shutting down this close to the end of [the extended] tax season. One then informed me that not only is the IRS system for electronic filing (required for all tax preparers and the predominant means of filing all tax returns today) shut down, but their system for electronic payments would be inoperable also. Many taxpayers today either prefer electronic payments or may be required to do such.Bialosky complains that "[t]he IRS still does not get they serve the people of the United States". I was with him until then: Confiscating money from American citizens in violation of their right to property is not and can not be service -- not in the sense of proper government service, anyway. I am unfamiliar with Bruce Biaolosky, but he comes across as someone who would have no problem with the IRS continuing to subject us to myriad ridiculous rules en route to taking our money, if only it would do so more efficiently and politely. I beg to differ. (That said, the IRS ought to be made to make compliance as easy as possible until the day we are able to abolish it.)
The imperious disregard for just how anyone is supposed to live up to its rules, as described by Bialosky, may be incredible, but it is really just a symptom of a greater problem. When a people become comfortable with the idea that the government can take money from some to give to others, how can they complain about niceties such as being able to fork it over easily? And when so many demand abuses on a grand scale (such as income taxation) from our government, neither outrage nor surprise at such lesser abuses (as Bialosky describes) is really appropriate coming from anyone who isn't completely opposed to doing so.
Rather than whine about bureaucrats taking Columbus Day off, Bruce Bialosky should have warned us that we are being kicked around, and that we ought to stop asking for it.
-- CAV
2 comments:
Hi Gus,
My bookkeeper, who works in a CPA office, says that the IRS is producing so much verbiage that meetings on new regulations that they used to hold once per quarter are now being held three weeks out of four.
One way of getting interim civility that you're advocating is to have reciprocity; if it is a criminal offense for me to do something vis a vis submittal, loss, etc., of paperwork, then the IRS agents should face the same punitive sanctions. And no more faceless edicts and summons. A responsible name should be attached to every communication with a taxpayer and that person is the one who is on the hook for negligent behavior regarding the taxpayer.
But if we had politicians with the principles to require that kind of accountability, we'd probably have the capacity to disband the IRS and at least proceed to an interim flat tax on the way to abolition.
Sadly, we have nothing of the sort. If I, as a citizen, were to breach confidentiality as Lois Lerner did, I'd be subject to 10 years in prison and 250K in fines for each offense. If the GOP gets the white house in the 2016 election and fails to enforce those laws on Lerner, we can judge for ourselves just how dedicated they are to limited government or, indeed, even the idea of equal justice under the law.
c. andrew
"If the GOP gets the white house in the 2016 election and fails to enforce those laws on Lerner, we can judge for ourselves just how dedicated they are to limited government or, indeed, even the idea of equal justice under the law."
Well said.
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