IRS Commish Heading For Early Retirement?
Seems as if that’s pretty much how it’s looking – the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled hearings to examine alleged misconduct by Commish Koskinen, we hear. On May 24 (just next week) the Judiciary Committee will hear the findings of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s investigation of the Chief Revenooer!
Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Oh) has expressed his view thusly: “I applaud Chairman Goodlatte’s decision to hold hearings on the resolution for impeachment of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. Commissioner Koskinen failed to fulfill his duty to the American people by allowing back-up tapes containing potentially 24,000 emails to be destroyed. He failed to inform Congress about the destruction of these back-up tapes in a timely manner……Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist papers that impeachment should be used to protect the public against ‘the abuse or violation of some public trust.’ Commissioner Koskinen has most assuredly violated the public trust…….”
And while Koskinen stews over this turn of events, we ponder the recently released IRS tome, “IRS Future State: Overview – The Path Traveled and the Road Ahead.” This look toward the future self-assessment notes, among other things:
- Over the last decade, the IRS has made significant progress by improving tax processing and account management systems (It has?)
- However, reduced funding and loss of resources at the IRS have jeopardized voluntary compliance
- The IRS has intensified efforts to enhance voluntary compliance by designing, developing and implementing approaches to tax administration that are more proactive, accessible and interactive
- These efforts are known collectively as the IRS “Future State”
Check out this “Future State” draft if you’re interested in more of the details, including a bunch of pretty graphs and flow charts, as well as a bunch of high-minded, futuristic jargon worthy of a Harvard professor, though not terribly indicative of the detail which will make much sense to the average Joe Six-pack. As far as the “Next Steps in the Journey,” take heart in the ultimate “step” which IRS says will constitute “Performance Monitoring and Reporting”: “As initiatives launch, IRS will carefully track performance towards the Enterprise goals, as well as more broadly assess progress toward the Future State. Input from employees, taxpayers, and other stakeholders will be critical to this assessment.”
Sigh….
CONSULT YOUR TAX ADVISOR – This article contains general information about various tax matters. You should consult your CPA regarding the implications to your own particular situation.
Jeff Quinn, the author of this article, is a CPA, recently retired from Ashley Quinn, CPAs and Consultants, Ltd., with offices in Incline Village and Reno. He welcomes comments at [email protected].
