Insights, Issues & Istook

Guess who's lying about their finances—it's the IRS.   The Internal Revenue Service told Congress millions of taxpayer inquiries are ignored because Congress doesn't give the IRS enough money to function. The IRS deliberately makes taxpayers its lowest priority.   Congress gave the agency the same money this year as last year. But the IRS diverted $134-million away from customer service, reducing its customer service budget by 76 percent.   Instead, the IRS commissioner gave out more bonuses to workers. He allowed them to spend 500,000 hours doing labor union business instead of IRS business. And the IRS spent over $1.2-billion to implement Obamacare rather than answering phone calls and other requests from taxpayers.   It's not that the bureaucrats don't have enough money to do their jobs. It's just that they choose other priorities instead of taking care of the little people—to them, that's what the taxpayers are.