Mike Causey

Abolish the IRS. What a great idea

In 18th century Paris, the cry "off with their heads" was directed mainly at aristocrats, many of whom had been living a little too high off the hog. In 21st ce...

Mike Causey@mcauseyWFED

March 26, 2015 2:00 am

3 min read

In 18th century Paris, the cry “off with their heads” was directed mainly at aristocrats, many of whom had been living a little too high off the hog.

In 21st century Washington, at least on Capitol Hill, folks nominated for the chop are guilty of one heinous (to some) crime. They are taxpayers who also happen to work for the Internal Revenue Service. Or, as they say on the Hill, the Infernal Revenue Service.

Some GOP members of the House want to trim the IRS down to size. Way down. They say the IRS has gotten to big for its bureaucratic britches. In part because of complex tax laws (passed by whom?), new health care mandates from the White House, and for allegedly covering up major harassment of conservative (but not liberal) groups seeking special tax status.

In becoming the first announced presidential candidate for 2016, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) called for the abolition of the IRS.

The new report of the House Budget Committee has a laundry list of proposed changes in civil service benefits. They include many that have been proposed, then either ignored, defeated or forgotten in the past.

This year the committee has taken special aim at the IRS. It says the service has more than 90,000 workers and “spends in excess of $11 billion annually.” No mention of what it brings in, which is a lot more than $11 billion.

The committee says the IRS code (which incidentally was primarily written and approved by politicians to help special interest groups) now contains 4-million words. That is a lot of words.

The GOP majority on the committee makes no bones about being ticked off to the extreme with IRS’s leadership because “the on-going investigation related to the IRS targeting American citizens demonstrates that the massive budget has not resulted in the IRS serving taxpayers better; rather it has created a bloated bureaucracy with space for inefficiency and abuse.”

While the committee didn’t endorse abolishing the IRS (where would we send our money each April 15??), it made it clear that many, many of its employees have got to go.

What are the odds the IRS will be done away with? Slim and none, and slim just left the room. But it does indicate that the embattled IRS, one of the most-disliked-but-necessary-federal operations will continue to be ground zero for politicians of both parties who continue to use the IRS for political purposes.

Nearly Useless Factoid by Julia Ziegler

Americans have a higher “tax morale” than many other countries, meaning they voluntarily pay their taxes “more frequently than other nations.” (Source: TurboTax)

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Mike Causey

Mike Causey is senior correspondent for Federal News Network and writes his daily Federal Report column on federal employees’ pay, benefits and retirement.

Follow @mcauseyWFED