from the only-things-you-can-count-on dept.
The IRS seriously looking at shutdowns to save money isn't generally news of the Soylent variety. But as juggs and mrcoolbp are hard at work getting our fiscal house in order over the next twelve days so as to lose as little of your generous contributions as strictly necessary to taxes, I figured this was worth a story.
The IRS is considering its own temporary shutdown due to recent budget cuts enacted by Congress, its chief said Thursday.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said furloughs — forced unpaid days off for employees as part of an IRS closure — is one idea reluctantly being tossed about to save money, though they are hoping they will not have to go there.
“People call it furloughs; I view it as: Are we going to have to shut the place down? And at this point, that will be the last thing we do, … but there is no way we can say right now that that wont happen,” Koskinen told reporters at a Thursday press conference on the upcoming tax season. “Again, I would stress that would be the last option.”
I for one welcome the decrease in power of our wealth-destroying overlords.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @12:15AM
The IRS, which actually has 'Revenue' right in its name, is underfunded and may have to reduce operations? Aren't these the very people who need to do their jobs in order to collect the taxes used as the government's ... wait for it ... revenue? I realize no one likes to pay taxes, but the US government spends more money than most (if not all) other governments. It even spends money that it doesn't have. Trillions and trillions of dollars that it doesn't have (US national debt as of this post: $18,031,665,394,536.73).
Perhaps they should rethink the short-sighted savings associated with cutting the IRS's budget.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @01:02AM
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(Score: 1) by soylentsandor on Saturday December 20 2014, @09:08AM
It's a government thing. You're not supposed to apply logic.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday December 20 2014, @09:12AM
With a debt like that any tax revenue is statistically insignificant.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday December 20 2014, @02:59PM
Well, other solutions exists. For instance, they may try... ummm... outsourcing the tax collection, eh?
I hear that the Pakistani hijra [wikipedia.org] are pretty effective in collecting taxes [theguardian.com].
(large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday December 20 2014, @12:25AM
My dad's favorite comment in the checkout line when only one check station was manned was "If you can't afford to run the cash register you need to get out of business..."
This is the same IRS that the administration is turning all of our medical records over to?
You probably could shut down most of the IRS at certain times of the year, given that most tax payment is automated these days, and collected by employers. Most people filing early are expecting refunds. Most people filing late are paying additional taxes.
Give everyone their vacation except those depositing checks. Then process them LIFO, because that's where the money is.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @12:40AM
You do realize that Big Business is doing this on purpose. They already pay near nothing in taxes. With no one there to check up on them, they may do even better.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday December 20 2014, @02:45AM
The answer is simple. Eliminate 90% of the tax code, flatten the sucker with lower rates, drop out all of the carveouts and exemptions. Because we ARE worse than broke I won't propose cutting actual taxes collected at this point but would insist on dynamic scoring when setting the new rates for revenue neutrality.
Then once that is done, gut 80% of the IRS's headcount and make it clear the impetus for the operation was largely to achieve the layoffs. The IRS has been politically weaponized and the only solution is to destroy it as a warning to the rest of the vast machinery of the State that their brand of foolishness will not be tolerated. NLRB and EPA would be on the short list for the next object lesson if they didn't quickly get the hint.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @03:17AM
No, we should be raising the top marginal rates like in the 50s when the economy was booming and had a vibrant middle class. We don't need more wealth concentration at the top end.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 20 2014, @03:51AM
Wealth is not finite. It is the end product of the human mind at work. Yes, I'm well aware of what that implies and I still stand by it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday December 20 2014, @03:56AM
No, we should be raising the top marginal rates like in the 50s when the economy was booming...
That is what is called cargo cult thinking. The two not only have no positive correlation, it is negative. In the 1950s we had just won WWII without taking a single blow to our industrial base while the rest of the world was mostly a smoking hole slowly rebuilding. For a brief moment in history we could afford to be that stupid. Now we have fierce international competition on a mostly level playing field.
So that is the fact based rebuttal to raising rates for 'fairness' and now is the smackdown on the politics angle. Please go on the record (like Obama had the courage to) with your answer to the question: What is your goal, revenue or fairness. It is admitted by almost all (even prog) economists that insane marginal tax rates and other confiscatory tax laws leads to tax avoidance and wealth preservation becoming more important that wealth creation; or shorter version, the tax man taking a bigger bite of a shrinking pie. Is this a problem on your planet? I want tax policy that will grow the economy and thus grow revenue into the treasury to pay off the insane debts we have incurred, what is your goal; please be specific.
I really don't give a flying f*ck if the rich get richer as long as everybody is also rising in real GDP. Some are driven more by envy than greed though. What motivates you?
Bottom line: THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S GOODS. There was a reason it made God's ultimate listicle and something very similar is found in every other moral code ever written down or carved on monuments. Disobeying it brings ruin. Every. Time.
It ain't yours, it ain't Obama's either. Somebody creates wealth they should get to keep it. Taxing to fund legitimate functions of government is the price we all pay to live in a civilized country, but taxing for 'fairness' or wealth redistribution is simply theft to satisfy unwholesome urges originating in envy, covetousness and pure spite .
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @05:48AM
As I work while watching my employer pocket more and more money, paying less in tax than I do (and he is paid millions a year while I get less than $13k), I have to wonder about those admissions.
That sounds like communism or socialism to me.
My boss doesn't pay me what I'm worth, or value related to what I create - he pays me the lowest amount he can, and he in turn gets paid the largest amount he can afford.
(Score: 1) by soylentsandor on Saturday December 20 2014, @09:13AM
You're not supposed to complain though, as you own a computer and have an internet connection.
/sarcasm
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 20 2014, @12:12PM
Yep, "envy, covetousness and pure spite" right there. If you don't like what you're paid, negotiate a raise or get a better paying job. If you can't get a better paying job, what does that say about your value to the workforce and society?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @03:48PM
If you can't get a better paying job, what does that say about your value to the workforce and society?
Nothing. We need janitors, garbage collectors, and other jobs often considered to be tedious, 'unskilled', and/or messy. They will always exist, unless we find a way to automate almost everything. There is not an infinite supply of good-paying jobs, so your logic of "Just go find a better paying job!" is simply abysmal.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 20 2014, @08:42PM
You think jobs are a finite resource? Huh. You probably think wealth is finite as well. When and if you ever learn what wealth is and where jobs come from, come back and we can discuss this further.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 21 2014, @01:52PM
You think jobs are a finite resource?
Indeed. There is a finite population of humans, a finite number of things that someone can need/want done, and a finite amount of time that someone can live. You'd be insanely stupid to suggest that jobs are not a finite resource. And if everyone did move on from these low-paying jobs, we'd be in trouble anyway.
You probably think wealth is finite as well.
Given the above constraints, it is. Having infinite wealth is impossible.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 21 2014, @03:47PM
I was trying to avoid having to explain this but I'll go ahead and clear up your misconception a bit.
Jobs are infinite because you are not limited to taking a job given by someone else. People have been creating their own jobs since there have been people. It's only the fools who think how things are is the only way they can be who believe this nonsense. The only limits on what you are allowed to do to make a living are is it physically possible and your own imagination.
Wealth is created whenever an idea to make your own (or someone else's) life easier or otherwise better meets implementation. While the number of humans is finite, the human mind is not; thus wealth is not finite.
Consider your television. How much effort would it have cost you for a 52" television a short fifteen years ago? How much effort would it cost you now? Wealth was created both for the television creators and for yourself. They now have more wealth in the form of dollars and you now have more wealth in that you have what previously would have cost you far more of your yearly efforts to afford.
Money? Money is simply a convenient method of storing wealth that you haven't decided how to trade for actual wealth yet.
If you actually want to fix the system and raise your position in it, look for things that take human effort without giving equal value of in return and avoid making them part of your life. Your job at Wal-Mart pays shit and has shit benefits? Find a grown-up job where your effort is more valuable to an employer. It's not difficult. If hiring you has advantages over hiring an unskilled teenager, you should be able to demand to be valued higher than an unskilled teenager. This does mean you have to use your mind though. Selling only physical effort is the lowest possible value you can give to an employer and is always going to be paid as such. All jobs are exactly the same fundamentally; to create wealth for your employer. The more valuable your contribution, the more wealth you can demand in compensation. tl;dr be valuable if you want to be valued.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @02:22PM
Time is limited and even the number of jobs you'd be able to assign yourself is limited because of that.
Consider your television. How much effort would it have cost you for a 52" television a short fifteen years ago? How much effort would it cost you now? Wealth was created both for the television creators and for yourself.
None of this is infinite. There is always a limit.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 22 2014, @04:42PM
You don't quite grasp infinity I'm thinking. A line that goes infinitely in both direction is not any longer than a ray starting at an arbitrary point on that line but extending infinitely in only one direction.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:04PM
You don't quite grasp reality I'm thinking. We're not talking about lines or rays, but about reality. There's a limited amount of time, a limited population, and therefore limited jobs. You can use your logic to say that just about anything is infinite, even if it isn't true in reality.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 24 2014, @03:53PM
A job need not be filled to exist, so yes, they are still infinite, my pedantic friend. If you can think up a job, it exists.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday December 20 2014, @04:09PM
It says that the wealthy have far too much power. You can be worth more and unable to get it because employers have colluded with anti-poaching agreements (Apple and Google), calls for more H1Bs under the pretext that there's a shortage of talent, and, until Obamacare, fear of losing your health insurance. The custom of keeping compensation secret also hurts. It's much harder to negotiate when you don't know what you're really worth. The boss can cut employee pay any time, but employees can't return the favor. If they have stock in the company, you can be sure they've been sidelined. Small time owners can't vote on executive pay because the board won't let a proposal to cut executive pay ever make it onto the agenda. Golden parachutes are useless, damaging, and unfair, but it seems no one can stop them.
You could try to save and invest, but there are many schemes the wealthy use to cheat you. Currently, the big ones are various forms of stock dilution. They've rigged the system so they get the lion's share of the profits. The rest of us get just enough to keep us from revolting. They're always testing that boundary, seeing what more we will give up without rising up.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 20 2014, @09:05PM
Oh? By whose definition? Oh, right, yours. Fascist much?
Unfair? What are you, six? On behalf of the rest of us, welcome to grown-up life. Fair as an adult means everyone gets to achieve or not as their drive and ability will allow them. Fair is most certainly not the poor getting to stick their hands in my pocket because they couldn't be arsed to learn a useful skill growing up that would allow them to become other than poor. Those who've had an act of god fuck their life up, much sympathy; the rest of the losers whining about how unfair it is that smarter, harder-working people earn more, none. In fact, fuck them. They're a cancer upon productive society. You want wealth, create some; don't steal it from your betters.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday December 21 2014, @01:28AM
The world is more diverse than two kinds of people, creators and moochers. What a narrow minded view, all those "2 kinds of people" divides.
Wealth does not strongly correlate with competence and merit. Some wealthy people inherited their wealth. They didn't have to work one day. We have a number of terms for them, none of which are particularly kind. For instance, playboy, and trust fund baby. Others stole their wealth.
Yes, there's a lot of cheating. The owners of the RIAA companies, who achieved their wealth by screwing everyone, both artists and customers, do they deserve praise? No. It's so easy to say that, well, it's the artists' fault for accepting such bad deals. But reality isn't that easy. I have also been cheated by employers. The system of paying for work at the end of the pay period makes it too easy for a company to get a month of free work.
And what are the RIAA members doing with their wealth and power? Trying to perpetuate and strengthen the system that made them wealthy, no matter whether that's in the public interest or not. As it happens, it's not. Why has copyright been extended repeatedly?
Then there are researchers. They don't even get to keep the copyrights to their own works, in order to get published.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 21 2014, @07:35AM
Greed and envy my friend. You are chock full of it. You didn't win the born to rich parents lotto like only a very few do; get over it, work like the vast majority of us have to, and quit whining that life isn't fair. It's never going to be fair. The only fairness you have a right to expect is equal treatment under the law. That partially means that you're only entitled to demand the government butt rape anyone on taxes as much as you're willing to be butt raped by them yourself. Anything else is decidedly unequal treatment under the law.
Now you keep going on about corruption and that's fine. Good on you. I'll wave the trust busters flag right along with you. That is the only thing you've said that I'll ever do anything but disagree vehemently with though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 21 2014, @01:48PM
It's never going to be fair.
Therefore, give up on trying to make it more fair.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 21 2014, @02:50PM
Yes, absolutely. It is not possible for it to be "more fair". Any adjustment you try to make for your definition of fair is both unfair and totalitarian. If you have to infringe upon the natural rights of even one person for your agenda, your agenda needs to be reevaluated. This very specifically includes property rights.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @02:29PM
Yes, absolutely. It is not possible for it to be "more fair".
Really? So you think that getting rid of the NSA's mass surveillance to protect people's rights would not make things more fair? Getting rid of the TSA would not be more fair? How about getting rid of free speech zones, DUI checkpoints, FCC censorship, preemptive warfare, the ban on certain drugs, restrictions on abortion, bans on same sex marriage, the Unpatriotic Act, protest permits, and a number of other unjust and/or unconstitutional government policies? We can't make the world more fair in any aspect?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 22 2014, @04:36PM
I think they have nothing to do with economics for starters. Fair though? Those have nothing to do with fair. They have only to do with "do we want this as a policy or not". Fair does not enter into adult life.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 23 2014, @02:02PM
They do relate to fair. It is absolutely unfair (as well as unjust, among other things) that the government violates people's fundamental liberties and the highest law of the land on a routine basis.
Fair does not enter into adult life.
It does all the time, for many people.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 24 2014, @03:57PM
Unjust, absolutely. Justice is nothing like fairness though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by BK on Saturday December 20 2014, @03:45AM
This both explains what is going on here and what may well happen.
The IRS has been used as a weapon before (check article 2) [watergate.info], but this time its employees went along willingly. Never forget that the employees of this agency overwhelmingly support just one political party [huffingtonpost.com] (and I don't mean the Pirate Party). They are institutionally blind to their problem here. Lost emails... 'wink
One aspect of strongly supporting one party in a 2 party system is that sometimes the other party can win...
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday December 20 2014, @04:09AM
The IRS has been used as a weapon before (check article 2)
Not exactly. That was an ATTEMPT, but not a successful one. However there was a prior success. Has everyone forgotten Hillary Clinton and the stacks of IRS files of political enemies? Somebody at IRS had to pull those records and deliver them and everybody there knows it is illegal as hell to release those things to anyone outside the IRS without a court order.
So we have two Democrat administrations using the IRS as the political weapon Nixon only talked about. It simply must be destroyed.
The Republicans have the power to do it if they have the courage to do the right thing or the brains to realize that if they don't act they are dead meat. Once the weapon is fully activated nobody, and I do mean nobody, will even think about donating to a Republican candidate or conservative cause. And Hillary! or Warren will almost certainly be POTUS in 2017 so the lame duck next year is their best shot.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday December 20 2014, @04:23AM
How do you guys get away with denigrating the the Democrats without being modded to hell?
Every time I mention them the liberal twerps come out gunning.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday December 20 2014, @05:00AM
This place isn't as bad as the old one, but it still happens. It's only Karma, so in the end, who cares? It is good clean fun. And even over there I kept the Karma bonus for over ten solid years, right up until management (post Cmdr Taco) put me into a hellban so hard my work IP still can't even make AC posts. The secret is to a) if you are going to dissent you have to make solid posts such that you will attract enough + mods to come close to balancing the - mods and b) post enough non political stuff in the pure tech threads to keep the posting bonus.
It is a game, learn to play. The site needs you, without us there is just groupthink and the threads would die out. Back on the old site I had personal goals, on any page of two dozen comments I expected (and almost always got, sometimes MUCH more) at least thirty replies and two dozen net upmods. Any less and I knew I wasn't contributing as much to the discussion and needed to up my game again. Here there just isn't the numbers for that yet, hopefully the eyeballs will come.
Just don't think you are likely to actually change many minds, at least amongst the posters. Who knows whether the lurkers are actually persuadable.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 20 2014, @05:09AM
Yeah, definitely not the other site. There are a few here who -1 Disagree or mod bomb but if I can stay at max karma while being extremely vocal about my hatred of progressives, anyone can.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Saturday December 20 2014, @10:16PM
Eliminate all prediction requirements in the tax code. Estimated tax payments are teh suck if you've ever dealt with it. There would have to be one quarter (3 months) of transition as we shifted from a system that penalized taxpayers for failing to have a crystal ball, to one that's sane. Float bonds to cover the shortfall. It's not like they would have any trouble doing that. In case they haven't noticed, the world is willing to lend the US short-term money at virtually zero interest rates now. There are a lot of things that piss me off about the tax code; but estimation is probably no. 1.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 20 2014, @04:32AM
Keep writing. Only way to get better.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 20 2014, @05:05AM
I've seen people who didn't RTFA or even RTF summary but not being able to even RTF author? It's three freaking words, yo. Regardless, I make no apologies for the quality of my subs. I write code not English. Tits or GTFO. If you aren't going to sub anything better, have a big ole steaming mug of STFU.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Saturday December 20 2014, @04:45AM
Don't get the budget increase you want? Figure out how to hurt the American people the most and run with it. See also: shutting down the park last year during the shutdown. Especially those parks where there were no rangers. Too bad those WWII vets tore down your yellow tape and folding chairs.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @01:01PM
This is exactly what the IRS is doing. There is plenty of money to do their job. The best part of the shutdown last year was seeing a bunch of octogenarians roll right over the US Park Police who closed the WWII memorial in DC. One of the veterans said, "I helped take the beach at Normandy, I think I can handle some rent-a-cops and police tape."
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Saturday December 20 2014, @04:04PM
I wish my accountant was named Juggs.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 22 2014, @08:17AM
1. The U.S. Government seize/take over the U.S. banks and their electronic payment networks (AMEX/VISA/MC/DISCOVER/ETC.) through 'eminent domain'.
2. These payment networks are reprogrammed to 'skim money' in the form of an (inter?)national sales tax with the money funneled into the appropriate national Treasuries.
3. A (inter) national sales tax collected electronically through credit/debit card usage is announced along with the announcement that U.S. currency is null and void and no longer legal tender at some soon approaching deadline date. At that time, all cash money not deposited in a bank account that can be debited and credited electronically becomes worthless.
4. Since tax monies are collected electronically through the payment networks, the IRS only have to monitor about 18.2 million business firms [dmdatabases.com] instead of 254 million return filers by 2015 [irs.gov] (PDF warning). With that, the IRS can operate with a fraction of the workforce they have now...saving the U.S. Government even more money. The current tax code, now 74,000 pages long [townhall.com] can essentially be scrapped as the money is collected directly from the taxpayers with no more deductions and exceptions guidelines needed or necessary.
5. Current fraud is minimized because 'dead presidents' aren't being paid and saved without the Feds knowing about it as they have been rendered worthless by government edict. A key benefit is the elimination of armored truck services hauling cash around, bank tellers and store cashiers handling and counting it, and a dramatic(?) decrease in crime and criminal activity as there is no more anonymous cash available as an incentive for it to occur. Another benefit might be the end of the Federal Reserve as there would be no more need to physically print money out of thin air and loan it to the U.S. Government at interest--a process that has led the USA to accumulate a recordbreaking deficit [nationaldebtclocks.org] of $18,015,324,450,099.00 as of the time it was checked. The current GDP listed there at the time it was checked is $17.294 trillion dollars -- the USA is now in more debt than it can (ever?) repay through its GDP.
6. The alternative is barter which would be the only way to 'beat' this new system. Also, sadly, this system is vulnerable to EMP [wikipedia.org] and could eventually lead to this.... [biblegateway.com]