Last month marked the anniversary of Al Capone’s conviction for tax evasion, a crime for which he served a little over seven years of his eleven-year sentence. The loophole used to capture an elusive mobster remains perhaps the highest-profile instance of the Internal Revenue Service “saving the day.”
Maybe the agency should encourage Americans to watch The Untouchables – it might be a good way to improve sentiment for the IRS.
As we discussed a few months ago, only about 66% of Americans trust the IRS to enforce tax laws fairly, down from 72% in 2014. It doesn’t help that so many startling stories have come out about the agency (as has been reported elsewhere). But if the IRS can’t address misconduct on that scale, then there’s really no point in conducting surveys about how much people like them.
All of this coincides with the appointment of the relatively new IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, who has said that restoring taxpayers' trust is his No. 1 priority. Shocking headlines continue to threaten the validity of the agency and its new (or any) commissioner – something they won’t be able to recover from if they don’t correct course.
Recent strides have been made to ensure the IRS is working as efficiently as possible for taxpayers. Notably, during the 2023 tax season, the average wait time fell from 28 to 3 minutes. The agency also cleared a backlog of unprocessed tax forms that topped 20 million in 2022 – a result of the COVID-19 lockdown, which was outside of the IRS’ control.
We like to talk a lot about government inefficiency, but every so often, a government agency becomes more efficient – and that’s no time to pull the plug.
No taxpayer wants to see IRS agents knocking on their doors, but they do want to be able to get IRS staff on the phone without having to set aside their entire afternoon. Adequate staffing and resources are needed, not to empower the IRS but to protect working-class Americans. Between 2010 and 2021, the IRS actually cut staff by 22% due to underfunding – which isn’t helpful if you’re waiting on the phone to get an important question answered.
Moreover, with additional staffing, the IRS has committed to shift more attention onto the highest-income earners and restore fairness to the taxation system. Whoever wants to do this should follow the words of Rutger Bregman, the Dutch historian who called out World Economic Forum elites for their galling hypocrisy on tax evasion.
“I hear people talking the language of participation, justice, equality and transparency but almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance, right?” Bregman excoriated the WEF in 2019. “It feels like I’m at a firefighters conference and no one’s allowed to speak about water.”
The WEF’s mega-rich are to globalization what Al Capone was to prohibition. Their massive wealth allows them to pick and choose which country’s laws to follow. That they’ve gotten away with too much for too long is something both populist Republicans and populist Democrats can agree on. Economic nationalism is the solution.
Now, there are still a number of steps the agency must take to ensure peak performance. In the past, the IRS has fallen short of its duty to protect taxpayer data – often a result of improper staffing and resources, which pushed them to lean on private tax preparation services that have no ethical constraints.
If the agency – as a result of diminished support and funding decreases – cuts corners when deciding what modernization and efficiency looks like, it could turn out to be a disservice to taxpayers across the country. Embracing new technology and methods help us keep pace with the American public, ensuring that our government system becomes more efficient.
No one likes the idea of giving more money to the agency whose job is to take our money. But, when we can begin to see how and where the dollars are going, it becomes an investment worth making. Especially if it helps Americans who do not have the resources to navigate our overly complicated tax system. But the IRS does need the muscle to go after the Al Capones and WEF cheats of the world.
Let’s not kneecap them just as they are starting to become more efficient.
Jared Whitley is a longtime DC politico, having worked in the US Senate, White House, and defense industry. He has an MBA from Hult International Business School in Dubai.
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