Professor - worked at office of the chief counsel - tax abuse sector…
private firm - acct irregularities
oversight of NP orgs
there's a real crisis in non-profit oversight - not enough $$$
fact:
how the IRS was gutted: the IRS has fewer than 10k auditors - 1953 was last time it had that #
200 auditors are looking into fraud
non-rpofit world got bigger 3 trillion assets 5% of gdp 0ver a gorillion orgs
it is important to have good oversight within this group - America deserves it
the law should be their to stop these orgs from acting in their own self interests
if this is going to be a tit for tat - it ain't gonna help us - I'd like to these nonprofs working better
we need more $$$ for oversight
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted
An eight-year campaign to slash the agency’s budget has left it understaffed, hamstrung and operating with archaic equipment. The result: billions less to fund the government. That’s good news for corporations and the wealthy.
by Paul Kiel and Jesse Eisinger Dec. 11, 5 a.m. EST
This story was co-published with The Atlantic.
Gutting the IRS
Who Wins When a Crucial Agency Is Defunded
After Budget Cuts, the IRS’ Work Against Tax Cheats Is Facing “Collapse”
Audits and criminal referrals are down sharply since Congress cut the tax agency’s budget and management changed priorities.
In the summer of 2008, William Pfeil made a startling discovery: Hundreds of foreign companies that operated in the U.S. weren’t paying U.S. taxes, and his employer, the Internal Revenue Service, had no idea. Under U.S. law, companies that do business in the Gulf of Mexico owe the American government a piece of what they make drilling for oil there or helping those that do. But the vast majority of the foreign companies weren’t paying anything, and taxpaying American companies were upset, arguing that it unfairly allowed the foreign rivals to underbid for contracts.
Pfeil and the IRS started pursuing the non-U.S. entities. Ultimately, he figures he brought in more than $50 million in previously unpaid taxes over the course of about five years. It was an example of how the tax-collecting agency is supposed to work.
But then Congress began regularly reducing the IRS budget. After 43 years with the agency, Pfeil — who had hoped to reach his 50th anniversary — was angry about the “steady decrease in budget and resources” the agency had seen. He retired in 2013 at 68.
After Pfeil left, he heard that his program was being shut down. “I don’t blame the IRS,” Pfeil said. “I blame the Congress for not giving us the budget to do the job.”
The IRS Budget Has Declined
20102017$14B$12B
Note: 2018 dollars.
Source: IRS and Congress.gov
Had the billions in budget reductions occurred all at once, with tens of thousands of auditors, collectors and customer service representatives streaming out of government buildings in a single day, the collapse of the IRS might have gotten more attention. But there have been no mass layoffs or dramatic announcements. Instead, it’s taken eight years to bring the agency that funds the government this low. Over time, the IRS has slowly transformed, one employee departure at a time.
The result is a bureaucracy on life support and tens of billions in lost government revenue. ProPublica estimates a toll of at least $18 billion every year, but the true cost could easily run tens of billions of dollars higher.