Starving the IRS hurts all

The hue and cry was deafening in 2013 when the Internal Revenue Service showed it had selected certain political groups seeking tax-exempt status for investigation. The groups, as reported early on, were conservative in nature or had the tea party label somewhere in their names. There were some liberal groups looked at as well.

An FBI probe ensued. Republicans screamed. And despite the fact that in the end it proved much ado about very little, the GOP Congress has been punishing the IRS with budget cuts ever since.

It has been a foolish and costly bit of revenge. Now, reports IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, the agency is short of personnel across the board, conducting far fewer audits, hindered in its ability to respond to callers seeking tax help and, yes, by the way, likely losing billions of dollars in money brought in by audits.

“With the budget the Senate and House are proposing (with even more cuts), service will get worse if you can imagine that,” Koskinen said in remarks to a conference of tax professionals in Washington. The agency’s audits are at the lowest level in more than a decade.

So political revenge, over something that turned out not to be a scandal – no criminal charges were filed – is essentially costing every single honest American taxpayer. Without the billions in revenue from audits, the government has to make cuts or make up the money for basic appropriations. That in effect means a greater financial burden on virtually all the departments in the federal government.

The IRS is likely right up there with chicken pox in terms of popularity with the public. But average Americans realize that without audits, the honest taxpayers are supporting the dishonest ones. Is that really what Republicans had in mind when they took the blade to the IRS budget? No, it was a visceral, emotional response to what some Republicans claimed was an assault on groups that supported their political point of view.

Only it wasn’t so.

And now the agency stands to suffer more cuts this year. Said Koskinen: “In cutting the IRS budget, the government is forgoing billions just to achieve a budget savings of a few hundred million dollars.”

The IRS has suffered a 17 percent cut in its budget in the last five years even as the number of taxpayers has grown. Meanwhile, more people are getting away with not paying their taxes or paying less than they should because the agency that’s supposed to keep things straight doesn’t have enough resources to do the job.

This story was originally published November 6, 2015 at 5:03 AM with the headline "Starving the IRS hurts all."