So, Admit It, You Want 87,000 More IRS Agents

[benenglish]

That’s after FLETC, and I’ll hazard to guess half or more of the ammo allocation goes there.

There are some really odd positions at the IRS that go through FLETC but don't carry guns and have no arrest authority.

I wonder if they get firearms training?

OT. Sorry.

 

[toddnjoyce]

There are some really odd positions at the IRS that go through FLETC but don't carry guns and have no arrest authority.

I wonder if they get firearms training?

OT. Sorry.

I don’t know, but you can read to your hearts content here:

9.2.1 Training | Internal Revenue Service

www.irs.gov

 

[benenglish]

I don’t know, but you can read to your hearts content here:

9.2.1 Training | Internal Revenue Service

www.irs.gov

I had to check elsewhere but managed to confirm that the uniformed jobs without arrest powers get no firearms training. That seems obvious to most people but if you've dealt with certain jobs, they sure maintain the sort of paramilitary culture that gives the impression they should be armed.

 

[Sam75022]

interesting take on this subject

The US is about to go full Louis XVI | Sovereign Man

On September 3, 1783, after nearly a year of excruciating back-and-forth negotiations, all sides had finally gathered together in Paris to sign a historic peace agreement. It was a pretty important…

www.sovereignman.com

 

[benenglish]

interesting take on this subject

The US is about to go full Louis XVI | Sovereign Man

On September 3, 1783, after nearly a year of excruciating back-and-forth negotiations, all sides had finally gathered together in Paris to sign a historic peace agreement. It was a pretty important…

www.sovereignman.com

Yes, interesting. Also, very poorly reasoned.

First, the IRS isn't increasing by 87K. It's hiring 87K over the next decade. During that time, they'll have about 50K retirements. So the agency will grow but it will continue to be ineffective in much of it's mission because everyone who knows anything about how to do their jobs will be gone. Those few baby boomers who are left who are good at their jobs will all be retired.

Second, the IRS isn't really increasing in size at all. It's just growing back to the size it was 20-30 years ago.

Third, the author is afraid of all those new "tax inspectors," a job title that doesn't even exist.

Fourth, he's trying to compare a modern tax administration agency with historic examples where the job of tax collection took about a day, just enough time to know how to drop in on a peasant and steal everything not hidden. That's not the way it works these days. A tyrannical US government can't really turn the IRS loose to terrorize the population without lots of lead time. During that lead time, they're just as vulnerable to budget cuts as they have been for the last 30 years. IOW, Americans will still have dozens of chances to vote in politicians who will re-neuter the agency.

Nice bit of fear-mongering but it falls apart as soon at the reader spends two minutes thinking about it.

 

[Sam75022]

Yes, interesting. Also, very poorly reasoned.

First, the IRS isn't increasing by 87K. It's hiring 87K over the next decade. During that time, they'll have about 50K retirements. So the agency will grow but it will continue to be ineffective in much of it's mission because everyone who knows anything about how to do their jobs will be gone. Those few baby boomers who are left who are good at their jobs will all be retired.

Second, the IRS isn't really increasing in size at all. It's just growing back to the size it was 20-30 years ago.

Third, the author is afraid of all those new "tax inspectors," a job title that doesn't even exist.

Fourth, he's trying to compare a modern tax administration agency with historic examples where the job of tax collection took about a day, just enough time to know how to drop in on a peasant and steal everything not hidden. That's not the way it works these days. A tyrannical US government can't really turn the IRS loose to terrorize the population without lots of lead time. During that lead time, they're just as vulnerable to budget cuts as they have been for the last 30 years. IOW, Americans will still have dozens of chances to vote in politicians who will re-neuter the agency.

Nice bit of fear-mongering but it falls apart as soon at the reader spends two minutes thinking about it.

Yes, I should have added that author is trying to promote his book "Plan B" --end of the world as you know it variety...so it should be read with grain of salt.

 

[toddnjoyce]

Not off a good start.

WASHINGTON—The Internal Revenue Service inadvertently posted what is normally confidential information involving about 120,000 individuals before discovering the error and removing the data from its website, officials said Friday.

Probably paywall: https://www.wsj.com/articles/irs-sa...idential-taxpayer-data-on-website-11662145232

 

[benenglish]

Not off a good start.

For 30+ years after the post-Nixon reorganization of the IRS, it was the most infosec-minded civilian agency in the US government. A few leaks happened when some old school Special Agent decided that the confidential records in his glove box were secure because he was carrying a gun. True leaks were very rare and almost always minor. At most, one Officer, Agent, or Special Agent would have their briefcase stolen from the trunk of their car when eating lunch.

Leaks via automated sources were unheard of; hell, the agency ran its own dedicated copper all over the damn place. The only large leaks happened when an employee intentionally violated the law and those cases were almost non-existent.

Nearly every "leak" reported by the mainstream media over the last 30 years has been the loss of a laptop containing secure information. What they don't report is that those situations don't result in any information being released due to the standard full-disk encryption and two-factor access requirements on every single computer owned by the IRS, something the IRS implemented more than a decade before almost any other civilian agency.

Then I see something like this and I see how far the agency has fallen.

It's infuriating.

I suppose 990-T returns migrating to electronic filing were probably the most likely place to have problems but that just means the Disclosure Officer over the controlling district should have anticipated the problems and worked with Information Security to prevent them.

I really, really want to read the TIGTA report on this one. It should come out fairly quick; probably about 6 months, given that the issue isn't, at first glance, terribly complex.

If it turns out that this was a contractor job and they didn't appreciate the difference between public 990-T returns and private 990-T returns, I'm going to be doubly angry. The internal folks who do this sort of work may be demeaned by the world as poor quality coders who can't hack it in the private sector but at least they know the difference between data designated SBU (Sensitive but Unclassified, which is nearly all tax data) and data that can be disclosed to the public.