NY Times Is Concerned IRS Won’t Have The Staff To Audit The Peasants

Does the Times think that this headline about stalled audits is going to give any American other than the hardcore Democrat base a big sad? (non-paywalled version here)

Stalled Audits and a Skeleton Staff: Inside Trump’s War on the I.R.S.

Beth Crowell was proud to work for the Internal Revenue Service.

She had spent much of her career as an accountant for large corporations, gaining intimate knowledge about how they do — and sometimes don’t — pay the taxes they owe. Working for the I.R.S. in Colorado, she hoped to put her skills to a new use. She wanted to help collect more money for the federal government.

Not long after joining last July, she had her chance. Ms. Crowell, 64, joined a team that had started an audit of a company earning roughly $3 billion a year. The I.R.S. had never examined the firm before, Ms. Crowell said, because the agency hadn’t had enough employees with the skills for such complex cases. “They’re a large multinational company, and it is not a normal thing to not have been examined,” she said, declining to name the firm.

By hiring Ms. Crowell and thousands of other experienced tax professionals like her last year, the I.R.S. was trying to fill those gaps and rebuild its ability to enforce tax laws after years of decay. The effort was expected to help the United States recoup billions in additional tax revenue.

So, it sounds like the IRS went after the company for the hell of it. Was it necessary? Were there irregularities in their previous filings? Did someone at the company say something? Because it sure looks like the worker bees simply went after the company Because They Could.

Then the layoffs started. With Trump administration targeting recent hires across the government, the terminations hit particularly hard in Ms. Crowell’s division, large business and international. Of the more than 7,000 people laid off from the I.R.S. so far, roughly half worked in her department.

In 2020 there were 80,200 IRS employees, which was down from 92,000 in 2010. Then they added a lot, and were reportedly over 100,000 by January 2025. This is called “understaffed”. Maybe they should do more with less, like in the private sector, rather than having people with little to do but decide they do not like that person or company and go after them. Remember, you are guilty till proven innocent when it comes to IRS audits.

Firing probationary employees like Ms. Crowell was just the beginning of President Trump’s far-reaching agenda for the I.R.S. The administration is preparing budget cuts and further layoffs that could ultimately force the I.R.S. to shed as much as half of its 100,000-person work force — a drastic reduction that could mean many Americans face less scrutiny, and receive less help, on their taxes. At the same time, Mr. Trump is asserting more political control over an agency that has historically been insulated from changes in leadership at the White House.

No one is crying except the moonbats at the Times and hardcore Democrats. Few need help on their taxes. There are plenty of online tax companies, as well as tax professionals. As for “political control”, we all remember how the IRS went after Republican organizations and people, right? Commiserating over layoffs at the IRS is really not “oh, no!” the Times thinks it is.

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