Is the IRS broken? Will the Trump tax plan fix it? The nation’s tax collector has lost 20% of its budget in the last five years and 25% of its enforcement staff. Congress and the taxpaying public both fear and respect the IRS. But most people just hate the IRS. Most people seem to understand that we need to have income to pay for our military and government and are proud to pay their taxes, but they could be just as proud for half the money of the tax laws were changed.
The current Treasury Secretary said that “Our Tax Code has been broken,” for too long and believes that the proposed Trump tax plans will fix all that. That is not what we will be discussing here, they won’t fix any of the abuses of the system.
The Tax Code is a mess and it has nothing to do with the IRS. IRS agents just enforce the law, they do not make the laws. The tax laws are full of special tax breaks for corporations and wealthy individuals and they are not going to go away anytime soon. The IRS has been gutted and is not currently able to administer the tax laws and this is hurting the United States. All of us who actually pay taxes are being discriminated against when the IRS does not have the money to go after all those people who do not pay any taxes at all.
In 2016 the IRS Criminal Division conducted 3,395 investigations and those resulted in 2,871 indictments with a conviction rate of 96%. 73% of those found guilty went to jail for an average sentence of 22 months. They were ordered to pay restitution. Most did not. Currently there is $120 billion due to the U.S. for restitution. So this does not serve as much of a deterrent to other people to pay their fair share of the taxes.