re: The IRS has 85k employees.....

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(the group who lobbies in behalf if the U.S. taxpayer against unfair IRS practices)

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bullshite! The Taxpayer Advocate's office is the PR arm of the IRS. In my 25+ years of practice I have never seen a case in which the Taxpayer Advocate's office has questioned an IRS determination or practice. Appealing IRS actions through the Taxpayer Advocate is a waste of time, but unfortunately an unavoidable one in many cases since it is necessary before contacting a member of Congress. Members of Congress are the only effective taxpayer advocates.

I have listened to several addresses by the Taxpayer Advocate and she has always referred to her office and the IRS as "we" as if they are one an the same. There is no independence which would be necessary for true advocacy. Those are some employees of the IRS that I would gladly see eliminated or replaced.

It is a revenue collecting agency that doubles as a federal jobs program for people who would otherwise not get a job in the private sector doing similar job functions.

As an 85k strong jobs program, it will never be abolished. By growing it so large , the Feds have guaranteed that it will never be dissolved. That, and the fact that equally as many auditors and accountants would be out of work if the agency were dissolved makes it untouchable.

This number will grow due to the ACA.

That's about 75K too many.

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This number will grow due to the ACA.

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No it won't... they'll just put more people onto the ACA programs and then you'll have to wait 4 hours rather than 1 1/2 hours to talk to someone at the IRS.

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The IRS has 85k employees.....
The FBI has 35k.

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The FBI is very far from the only federal law enforcement agency in the US. The Department of Justice is pretty big. DEA, ATF, etc. In all the DoJ has over 110k employees which doesn't include other agencies that have there own law enforcement like the US Marshals. Additionally, Homeland Security is more twice the size of of the DoJ.

There are over 120k full time federal officers authorized to make arrests and carry firearms over the various federal agencies.

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Taxpayer Advocate

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When you can get ahold of one, they can do some good. I have had a zero percent success rate with the NOLA office. A few years ago I stopped trying and just contact the main line, and I get someone from another state eventually who most of the time can do the necessary paper pushing to get a resolution.

The IRS is being funded at, adjusted to inflation 1998 levels. Obviously, the tax code has grown a lot more complex since 1998. Plus add on all the ACA stuff.

Y'all are all about having fewer and fewer IRS employees, until the IRS screws up and grabs $50,000 from your bank account, and then you can't get in touch with any IRS employees for a month.

I'm not here to defend the IRS. Historically there have been tremendous waste and abuses in that agency.

But when the "special hotline" tax professionals call to resolve our clients issues only ANSWERS THE PHONE 41 percent of the time, with a much smaller percentage of actual solutions made, we have a serious issue.

We can sit here and say a flat tax, whatever, but that's not happening. It's not happening until you get people in Congress who don't look at the tax code as a way to favor their friends and punish their enemies.

Meanwhile, when the IRS sends you a bill, which you challenge, they never respond to the challenge because they are "overworked", and then they garnish your wages for failing to pay the bill...

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and then you can't get in touch with any IRS employees for a month.

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That's how it is now.

They extending bonus or 179 this year?