Michelle Singletary's January 30 column The Color of Money, "Tax season has just begun, and a flooded IRS is already taking steps to classify" [Business], addressed a much more serious problem for America than even the current Russia-Ukraine. crisis: the tragic state of affairs at the Internal Revenue Service, a situation that has been festering since the 1990s, and the then-Senate Majority Leader's suggestion that the IRS is "evil."
The IRS is the entity that funds the U.S. government, and over the past 25 years its health has deteriorated to the point where it is now understaffed, underfunded, inadequately equipped and, no doubt, thoroughly demoralized. The pandemic has certainly not helped, but the root causes of the IRS’s degradation go back to well before “covid-19” became part of the national vocabulary. And nothing, at least nothing visible, is being done to reverse this trend.
Honest taxpayers are being frustrated and discouraged by experiences such as those Ms. Singletary described. Those who would cheat on their taxes will do so in the expectation that the IRS will never be able to catch up with them. The government’s source of income is being seriously threatened.
Meanwhile, we are spending trillions of dollars on domestic programs. Any attempt at “building back better” had better start with securing the means to fund it.
It is time to reverse this trend and be serious about fixing the IRS.