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And maybe this is politically naive, but you would think that whoever is in power and in charge of running the government, they would want to properly fund the

And maybe this is politically naive, but you would think that whoever is in power and in charge of running the government, they would want to properly fund the very entity responsible for bringing in the funds that allow them to do what they want to do. If for example, each person you hire to the IRS can bring in 100x (or more?) the cost of having them on the payroll, wouldn't that be a no-brainer? But as I understand it, some people are more interested in crippling the functions of the government to make it easier to dismantle its functions. Maybe the goal of having our government be effective and useful (the long and hard won effort of building the institutions we have) has fallen by the wayside to having it be used as a pawn in stupid power games.

lyu07282 4y ago
"What they want to do"? The idea that someone like Pete Buttigieg for example actually cares about the railroad or airplanes or something as the Transport Secretary does sound completely absurd to me, that thought never even crossed my mind. In this case fixing it would mean this industry would cease to exist, so obviously this is never actually going to be fixed. Don't the people know that politicians have a fiduciary responsibility towards the shareholders of TurboTax?
mike_d 4y ago
> If for example, each person you hire to the IRS can bring in 100x (or more?) the cost of having them on the payroll, wouldn't that be a no-brainer? IRS audits and enforcement disproportionately target small business owners and lower middle class. People that have just enough money that it is worth trying to shake them down, but not enough that they can afford to fight it. The average is about $5 returned for $1 spent on enforcement, but that is a finite pool - the sweet spot I mentioned above. Throwing more money at enforcement would just end up lowering the recovery ratio. We are better off just scrapping the whole enforcement branch and putting that money into extending proactive capture (collect taxes on money before people receive it) and making filing easier to increase compliance.

lyu07282 4y ago

"What they want to do"? The idea that someone like Pete Buttigieg for example actually cares about the railroad or airplanes or something as the Transport Secretary does sound completely absurd to me, that thought never even crossed my mind. In this case fixing it would mean this industry would cease to exist, so obviously this is never actually going to be fixed. Don't the people know that politicians have a fiduciary responsibility towards the shareholders of TurboTax?

mike_d 4y ago

> If for example, each person you hire to the IRS can bring in 100x (or more?) the cost of having them on the payroll, wouldn't that be a no-brainer? IRS audits and enforcement disproportionately target small business owners and lower middle class. People that have just enough money that it is worth trying to shake them down, but not enough that they can afford to fight it. The average is about $5 returned for $1 spent on enforcement, but that is a finite pool - the sweet spot I mentioned above. Throwing more money at enforcement would just end up lowering the recovery ratio. We are better off just scrapping the whole enforcement branch and putting that money into extending proactive capture (collect taxes on money before people receive it) and making filing easier to increase compliance.