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How doesn’t it? You didn’t address a single point here. Many government agencies make no money, as they’re not profitable organizations (I’d argue the entire g

How doesn’t it? You didn’t address a single point here. Many government agencies make no money, as they’re not profitable organizations (I’d argue the entire government is de facto a non-profit organization but that’s a separate argument). The few that are able to make money would typically do so for their own ends (like taxing gasoline for maintaining roads). The IRS is one of the few organizations that generates income for the government specifically to spread across other agencies. What’s insane to me is people talking about this like there’s no ceiling to how much money the IRS can take or that if the IRS went to $0 per employee that would somehow be a good thing. It’s the same thing when people say NASA generates income for the country therefore we should fund it more. Be intellectually honest with yourselves, if we funded the IRS or NASA or any other entity that makes $X/employee, there is a point where that funding becomes suboptimal. And I’m not seeing anyone discuss what the optimal amount is here, it just seems like you think the amount is “more” because taxing people is “good.”

moksly 7y ago
> If your tax-agents aren’t needed, then downsize them, I mean, maybe I could have put it more clearly, but I think it is fairly obvious that I wasn’t advocating for what you seem to think. I’m just not sure what strawman you’re trying to prove wrong here, or who you’re even arguing against. Unlimited funds to tax-agencies is silly, everyone agrees on that, but in both the original and my example, the result of downsizing staff to save a few million on the budget ended up costing society billions.
- isoskeles 7y ago
  Society didn’t lose out on billions, the government did. Whether or not that is bad is definitely a discussion worth having, but I won’t immediately conflate the two ideas. People and corporations got to keep money they may have otherwise lost due to auditing. At a glance, I am okay with that, and the arguments put forth so far don’t really convince me otherwise, like the number of dollars per IRS employee is a meaningless metric to me because it doesn’t tell me what’s optimal for government.
  - moksly 7y ago
    I’m danish, those billions pay for our education, healthcare and daycare/nursery institution. Most of the money went out of the country to heavy investment companies and hedge funds who exploited the fact that our vat-repayment system went from hundreds of auditors to just two people. Something we’re now battling international banks, investment funds and pension indexes to get partly back (at another great expense). I’m not sure what society you live in, but this was such a negative impact on ours that even our most liberal political parties, who exist primarily because they want to cut taxes heavily, support re-staffing our tax-agency.

moksly 7y ago

> If your tax-agents aren’t needed, then downsize them, I mean, maybe I could have put it more clearly, but I think it is fairly obvious that I wasn’t advocating for what you seem to think. I’m just not sure what strawman you’re trying to prove wrong here, or who you’re even arguing against. Unlimited funds to tax-agencies is silly, everyone agrees on that, but in both the original and my example, the result of downsizing staff to save a few million on the budget ended up costing society billions.

isoskeles 7y ago
Society didn’t lose out on billions, the government did. Whether or not that is bad is definitely a discussion worth having, but I won’t immediately conflate the two ideas. People and corporations got to keep money they may have otherwise lost due to auditing. At a glance, I am okay with that, and the arguments put forth so far don’t really convince me otherwise, like the number of dollars per IRS employee is a meaningless metric to me because it doesn’t tell me what’s optimal for government.
- moksly 7y ago
  I’m danish, those billions pay for our education, healthcare and daycare/nursery institution. Most of the money went out of the country to heavy investment companies and hedge funds who exploited the fact that our vat-repayment system went from hundreds of auditors to just two people. Something we’re now battling international banks, investment funds and pension indexes to get partly back (at another great expense). I’m not sure what society you live in, but this was such a negative impact on ours that even our most liberal political parties, who exist primarily because they want to cut taxes heavily, support re-staffing our tax-agency.