IRS has aging workforce, service at risk: report

[ensho]

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5873ZR20090908?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews


The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is struggling with an aging workforce where more than a third of its executives are eligible for retirement, a scenario putting its mission at risk, a government report said on Monday.

The U.S. tax collection agency "faces a loss of leadership and technical employees that could threaten its ability to provide American taxpayers the service they have come to expect," the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said in its report.

The IRS employs about 106,000 workers, including 9,100 managers. Half of all employees are over age 50, and 39 percent of IRS executives are already eligible for retirement. The agency has said it would have to hire a manager a day for the next decade to keep up with attrition.

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IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman has said tax avoidance and evasion by corporations and high-income taxpayers will be a major focus.

"The pending loss of institutional knowledge and expertise at all levels and the challenge of retaining a highly skilled workforce increase the risk that the IRS may not be able to achieve its mission," the report said.
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if money can be found to fight wars, then money can be found to hire IRS staff.

get on with the hiring and investigating corporations, for pete's sake.

[ejpoeta]

1. One would think they would have been working on addressing this BEFORE now.

I mean, it's not like they didn't know that they would need to replace these people eventually!! geesh!

[notesdev]

2. Good riddance

hopefully the whole department will go with them. We need a different way to deal with taxation than requiring every person to fill out a personal financial report to the government every year. No other department in government could collect even a smidgen of similar information without a court-authorized search and seizure warrant.

[TheDebbieDee]

3. The adequate staffing and training of IRS employees

is in direct opposition to the fatness of the wallets of the wealthy.........

And the IRS and all its functions (namely collecting tax revenues and catching tax cheats) has been in the sights of budget cutters for at least the last 15 years.

The conservatives have made sure that there is virtually no one to go after the wealthy tax cheats!

[Craftsman]

4. IRS Motto; We got what it takes to take what you got.

[Iterate]

5. Beware of a privatization effort.

No doubt it's everyone's least favorite part of government, but it has to function well, and in our common interest.

The pattern in the past has been to hobble an agency, make it ugly and less than capable, then bring in private corporations to the rescue. As I remember, this has been the pattern in some states and the IRS has been underfunded for years.

[madrchsod]

6. my wife has dealt with the irs and social security on the phone..

irs--quoting my wife.."what a fucking bitch"

social security--quoting my wife.."what a nice lady"

the irs did give us a decent payment plan on our back taxes -it was a mail in agreement.