Does the Times think that this headline about stalled audits is going to give any American other than the hardcore Democrat base a big sad? (non-paywalled version here)
Stalled Audits and a Skeleton Staff: Inside Trump’s War on the I.R.S.
Beth Crowell was proud to work for the Internal Revenue Service.
She had spent much of her career as an accountant for large corporations, gaining intimate knowledge about how they do — and sometimes don’t — pay the taxes they owe. Working for the I.R.S. in Colorado, she hoped to put her skills to a new use. She wanted to help collect more money for the federal government.
Not long after joining last July, she had her chance. Ms. Crowell, 64, joined a team that had started an audit of a company earning roughly $3 billion a year. The I.R.S. had never examined the firm before, Ms. Crowell said, because the agency hadn’t had enough employees with the skills for such complex cases. “They’re a large multinational company, and it is not a normal thing to not have been examined,” she said, declining to name the firm.
By hiring Ms. Crowell and thousands of other experienced tax professionals like her last year, the I.R.S. was trying to fill those gaps and rebuild its ability to enforce tax laws after years of decay. The effort was expected to help the United States recoup billions in additional tax revenue.
So, it sounds like the IRS went after the company for the hell of it. Was it necessary? Were there irregularities in their previous filings? Did someone at the company say something? Because it sure looks like the worker bees simply went after the company Because They Could.
Then the layoffs started. With Trump administration targeting recent hires across the government, the terminations hit particularly hard in Ms. Crowell’s division, large business and international. Of the more than 7,000 people laid off from the I.R.S. so far, roughly half worked in her department.
In 2020 there were 80,200 IRS employees, which was down from 92,000 in 2010. Then they added a lot, and were reportedly over 100,000 by January 2025. This is called “understaffed”. Maybe they should do more with less, like in the private sector, rather than having people with little to do but decide they do not like that person or company and go after them. Remember, you are guilty till proven innocent when it comes to IRS audits.
Firing probationary employees like Ms. Crowell was just the beginning of President Trump’s far-reaching agenda for the I.R.S. The administration is preparing budget cuts and further layoffs that could ultimately force the I.R.S. to shed as much as half of its 100,000-person work force — a drastic reduction that could mean many Americans face less scrutiny, and receive less help, on their taxes. At the same time, Mr. Trump is asserting more political control over an agency that has historically been insulated from changes in leadership at the White House.
No one is crying except the moonbats at the Times and hardcore Democrats. Few need help on their taxes. There are plenty of online tax companies, as well as tax professionals. As for “political control”, we all remember how the IRS went after Republican organizations and people, right? Commiserating over layoffs at the IRS is really not “oh, no!” the Times thinks it is.
If you believe castrating the IRS is to stop our hoi polloi from cheating a few bucks, I have am authorized to sell you ocean front property in Wayne County Missouri ($10,000-100,000/acre). LOL.
Nope! It’s to make life easier for billionaires like trump, Elon, Bessent, Burgum, McMahon, Lutnick, Loeffler, Bezos, Zuck, Thiel, Vance and the other 800 or so US billionaires and thousands of millionaires. Today the best route to riches is to be a government contractor or a money changer/lender. They want all the money, and “you’re their vehicle, baby” (with apologies to Ides of March, 1970).
If you rely on Medicaid, SNAP, Medicare and/or Social Security, you need to buckle up.
The prime objective of the MAGAt elites is to bolster the transfer of the fruits of YOUR labors UP the food chain to the idle rich!!
trump and his MAGA elites are leading you to the slaughter!!
Read billionaire Nick Hanauer!!
What happened to you that made you so hateful towards people wealthier than you? You seem to be of the mindset that the rich stole their wealth.
LG,
I have all the resources I will ever need, but thanks for your concern. We pay our fair share, as should everyone. I oppose trump’s plan to cut my taxes.
What you misinterpret as hate for the wealthy is actually empathy for the poor and working classes.
Let the rich be rich! But not at the expense of the mass of Americans.
Just after WWII, the US raised it’s top marginal tax rate to 94% with the objective to rebuild the nation and pay down the massive wartime debt. And they did it! Our ancestors paid off the debt that was greater 100% of GDP. They (essentially the wealthy!) built universities, schools, power plants, an interstate highway system, parks, libraries, dams, bridges, neighborhoods, airports; continued electrifying rural areas; they built the working class! But it was a different world back then – true patriots. Today the ruling-class wealthy are largely globalists with fealty to global markets not this nation.
Reagan doubled the national debt by cutting taxes and military spending. Following that we had the Iraq/Afghanistan invasions, the Great Recession, the Covid recession… all put on the federal credit card. Musk and trump threaten America may go bankrupt on their watch – but no. Trump is unwisely gambling that his dumb tariffs and layoffs will not lead to another recession – but he gambled and lost on a number of casinos – so… Anyway, the billionaires in power will survive.
Ellie,
Uh, the Democrats had control of the House, so they could have increased taxes and made Reagan veto.
But they didn’t. And while revenue increased near three fold spending increased even more.
BTW
If you cut military spending how does that help increasing….???
LG,
I could reasonably ask of you… What happened to you that made you so hateful toward the working class and poor?
You had claimed to be a firefighter, certainly an honorable, working class occupation.
The at least somewhat wealthy Mr Dowd wrote:
Thing is, Messrs Trump, Musk, Bessent, Burgum, McMahon, Lutnick, Loeffler, Bezos, Zuck, Thiel, (and) Vance all have real accountants and attorneys to prepare their income taxes. It’s the people who use “accountants” like TurboTax or, do things the 1970s way and file on paper, who would have to worry. Now, they’re less likely to be audited.
Every American should pay exactly the same tax. No, not the same percentage of income, but the same dollar amount! That was what the Framers intended.
It’s disappointing but Mr Teach is not telling the truth – the IRS (Reagan called them jack-booted thugs) don’t go after “the peasants”. They go after $3 BILLION companies that pay a lower tax rate than do their janitors.
Yes, the hodge-podge of a tax system cobbled together by industry lobbyists and compliant legislators is unfair and needs a major overhaul. But the working class is not to blame!
Just like the horribly inefficient and unfair immigration system our tax system needs to be revamped, but our federal legislature is not up to the job, giving crooks like trump and Musk free range.
So when Obama occupied the WH and the Dems controlled Congress (with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate), why didn’t they change the tax laws to get these evil billionaires ( the ones who pay most of the taxes)? So raising the top rate by 2% didn’t get the job done?
The natural-born American citizen Mr Dowd wrote:
Our immigration laws were written by Congress, and the Constitution states that Congress has that authority. It is inefficient in the regard that it seems as though there was no oversight to assure that those in the country on visas left when their visas expired, but it appears that the voters approved not only keeping the existing system but actually enforcing it, last November.
There is nothing “unfair” about denying non-Americans entry into our country.
Left out of the article is that with modern computing, it is arguable why the IRS needs any employees at all. My Taxcut software reliably reports all the essentials to the IRS computer to computer and doesn’t allow me to enter “irregularities”. The thing the IRS needs more than “experienced employees” is to take over the tax cut software industry so that Americas can pay their taxes without going through a third party and needing to pay them for the privilege of paying their taxes. Americans should be able to contact an IRS website and report their information (monthly or quarterly for businesses) and the computer automatically send out refunds or invoices as needed. Real Live IRS professionals are notorious for being wrong on all aspects of tax law and for dragging innocent people into tax courts with the option to “defend yourself in a rigged tax court” or just pay the fine.
Let’s not even mention the constitutional protection of a man to be secure in his papers and possessions, both are subject to full disclosure to the IRS. Don’t even mention the constitutional protection against self incrimination. You MUST report every detail of your spending. As we saw in the Trump case, you even have to categorize your spending according to what people in the future say things are instead of what they actually are.
Taxcut and Turbotax have been reliably doing taxes for 30 years by filling in the blanks on a computer. Why hasn’t the IRS gotten on board? Maybe it’s because they feel the need to preserve government jobs rather than serve the public.