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Makes one wonder what those 87,000 new IRS employees will focus on?
I don’t wonder. I think we all know what 87,000 IRS agents will be focused. Collectively turning the taxpayers upside down and shaking as much money out of them as they possibly can. The IRS estimates that there is a $600 bils. delta between their collections and what they estimate they should collect.
As to the new budget and new headcount, here’s what it’s really going for:
– $45 billion of the $80 billion appropriated is going to update systems.
– In the next five years, 50,000 IRS employees will retire and will need to be replaced.
– They only answered 11% of their calls in 2021, so that needs to be addressed.
– In fact, they still have 8 million unprocessed 2021 tax returns.
– There’s been an overall 17% reduction in IRS workforce since 2010 That needs to be addressed, and in that time, the percentage of returns that were audited went from 0.9% to 0.25%. That needs to be addressed.
– Yes, the number of audits will go up, but likely only for people making $400k or more annually; basically high net worth individuals, complex partnerships and large corporations.
– Supposedly, only 57.3% of the estimated new 86,852 agents will be assigned to enforcement.
public confessions of doubt by Jay Powell don’t help the nation’s confidence:
Fed unsure of economy’s direction as Wall Street meltdown worsens (msn.com)
So not only did the Fed increase rates 75 basis points, they signalled that there will likely be another 75 basis point increase and a 50 basis point increase in the next two sessions.
Every variable rate loan (mortgages, credit cards, auto financing) just got a lot more expensive. Real estate will likely hit a hard ceiling, and I suspect will drop substantially in certain areas that experienced big runups.
Going to be a tough next six months…to a year. Or two…
California is down 11% in personal income tax revenue versus expectations and 8% below forecast.
California Sees Warning Sign From Weak Tax Revenue Collections (msn.com)
Not surprising as California depends on revenue from the rich, and a tanking market hammers technology. Apple, Alphaet, Netflix, Lyft, Nvidia, all hurting.
The not-so-secret secret is that California has salted away surplus funds for just such an emergency.
200 homeless were moved from the 40 acre Guadalupe Gardens homeless encampment. I’d seen Guadalupe Gardens before the homeless had moved it, it was quite attractive and meshed well with the surrounding topography. Humans there, as everywhere else, are hard on the environment. The residents had been warned for months that this would happen. Since March, San Jose has moved 1.3 million pounds of debris and 84 cars and trucks that don’t run. San Jose Resumes Homeless Encampment Cleanup Near Airport – NBC Bay Area
Denver is spending $2 million from the American Rescue Plan Act.
Others that I didn’t mention, such as when Trump redirected funds that had been appropriated to other U.S. government operations to cover the cost of building his wall. As I said, I don’t like how this was done. And I suspect it will be challenged as unconstitutional.
Apparently, Biden is restarting the construction of the wall…
Joe Biden Resumes Construction of Trump’s Border Wall (theintercept.com)
I recall listening to a debate between a lefty and righty about the impact of standard media bias. Lefty (editor) says there’s no such thing, we report the news and only the news. We don’t editorialize at our publication. Righty (politician) says “True or false. You literally get to decide what is news by selecting which news is fit to print. You create bias when you publish one story over another or publish one side of a story or another. True or false?” To his amazement, the editor agreed.
So your sister is a closet conservative? 🙂
I would say she is a partially-out-of-the-closet conservative. Definitely a social progressive but with conservative financial leanings.
My Stanford PhD sister was always, always the Progressive’s Progressive. She used to have an interesting interpretation of Marx’s “From-each-according-to-his-ability, to-each-according-to-their-need” slogan. Her twist was that ability in that context should also be infused with inclination.
In other words, as she once told me, she should get paid the same amount for working 20 hours a week that I got paid for working 60 hours a week “because working’s your thing, man, it’s not my thing.” Direct quote.
Of course, these days, she’s employed her Stanford PhD to make some decent money, and she’s watching how much she’s paying in taxes, and — naturally — feels that she’s paying too much.
Other than extending the life of Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, does California have any more power plants on the design table to help comply with the mandates?
Ha, ha, ha. Just kidding. We all know the answer to that question.
I think lots of high achievers, cut off from support, are at risk for suicide. Middle-aged white males take their own lives at 3.54x more than women. It’s a perfect storm of factors.
Why are middle-aged white men more likely to die by suicide? | SSM Health
I love my dear mother, who occupies a planet far, far away from this one. Her favorite politician is Bernie Sanders. Sigh.
There’s no difference. 41,968 terror attacks sponsored by the Religion of Peace since 9/11.
Islam: The Politically Incorrect Truth (thereligionofpeace.com)
BTW, take a look at the Atrocity of the Week link. It concerns the murder of four Albuquerque, New Mexico Muslims last week. The articles I’ve read implied that evil caucasians committed these hate crimes. Turns out, the four Muslims were Shiite Muslims, and the murderer was a Shia Muslim, according to the AotW link.
An Afghan Muslim Refugee Carried Out America’s Worst Islamophobic Killings | FrontpageMag
BTW #2: an oddity of this board indicates that you are misspelling the word “Muslim” if you don’t capitalize it, same with the words “Jew” or “Christian”. “catholic” on the other hand, doesn’t appear as misspelled if you don’t capitalize it. Funny.
Salman Rushdie attack: details emerge about New Jersey suspect | Salman Rushdie | The Guardian
Hadi Matar, 24, born in USA of Lebanese parents, sympathetic to extreme Shia causes and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, per his social media accounts. Iran’s dictator/Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei said that “a thousand bravos” should be bestowed upon the “brave and dutiful person who attacked the apostate and evil Salman Rushdie in New York”.
