Continuing with my list of ten news items and activities from 2015 that I think have particular tax policy relevance.

#2 – IRS Funding Challenges – Despite an aging workforce resulting in many retirements, a tax statute that is made increasingly more complicated each year, and the need to modernize operational and technology practices, the IRS budget has been cut by over $1.2 billion from FY2010 to FY2015. [See 5/18/15 TIGTA report, Center for Budget and Policy Priorities article on the cuts of 9/30/15 and USA Today article of 6/17/15.]

The May 2015 TIGTA report includes the following graphs showing the decrease in the number of collection officers and a 95% increase in computer downtime due to use of old technology (hardware and software). Read More