A warning from a tough ol’ revenuer

Recently, we asked feds with long service, or those about to retire, to give us the benefit of their knowledge, experience, warts and all.  Today’s correspondent spent lots of time in the trenches of the Internal Revenue Service.  And he doesn’t like what he’s seeing:

“Hey Mike,

“Saw your recent column on privatizing work done by the IRS. I must say Congress wants to waste the taxpayers’ money then eliminate the IRS. Their stupidity continues to amaze me. What makes Congress think collecting from the private sector will bring in more money than the IRS can? It will be harder for people to collect from private organizations because the public will not not believe they are legit.

“There are  big-time  scammers out there preying on older and less educated people calling them up and telling them if they don’t pay $$$$$ they will be out there with federal marshals and take you to jail. They will say anything to get you to the bank and pay over their ransoms. My neighbor said they were called by these scammers and they came to me with questions and in a panic. I explained you would have to receive a notice before you’re called. Keep the last five years returns and you should know if you owed or not and tell the caller to buzz off! I’ve heard  pro athlete’s have been taken and older people.  So private companies will have to overcome this huge hurtle.

        Are agencies getting enough bang for their cyber buck? See how tech leaders feel about the state of their organization and budgets in our new survey, sponsored by Axonius.

“Of course, my former employer is not without blame themselves. In the last 10 years of my career, they have made robots out of revenue officers, made things easier and less confrontational. In my day it was “show me the money”. Now all they want to do is close the case. I was honest and told the taxpayer what would happen if he did not pay. Now payment agreements are the norm and they are broken more than 60 percent of the time. IRS has to babysit these taxpayers, instead of making them pay.

“They do not have the manpower nor the knowledge to tackle tax cheats as they try to hide the money in an entangling web. Again some of the revenue officers they hire find it too hard or don’t have the stomach to enforce the law.

“In my last years, I could see that Congress was trying to eventually put IRS out of business. Putting in useless pawns to run the agency. The plan is working. The revenue officers who thought like me and asked for the money are already retired or leaving in droves. I had over 35 years collections experience with IRS and the private sector and the private sector is worse since they are paid less, usually commission and just don’t have the knowledge other than brutalizing people over the phone. I don’t know why Congress thinks like they do. We pay them $170,000 a year to cost the taxpayer more.

“I will admit that I wasn’t a person who you wanted to be collected from, I always thought I was tough but fair. Since I’ve retired, I’ve learned a lot of what the ‘other side’ thought of me as a revenue officer. I was thought of as an SOB, but everyone has told me that I was highly respected also. Most understood why I was doing what I did. It is just so sad that our Congress just doesn’t get it either.” —Tony Krolik

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michael O’Connell

The three hardest types of cheese in the world are Romano, Pecorino and Parmesan.

Source: Oddfellows Burger Kitchen Blog

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.