As previously reported here on TSOE, the IRS is trying to leverage a statute from 1884 to justify the regulation of tax preparers, whom it has not seen fit to regulate in the last 127 years. The program supposedly authorized by the 1884 law included charging preparers a fee to take a "competency test." Now the IRS is in the embarrassing situation of having collected $100 million in "fees" from an industry it had no authority to regulate.
Again we note that the IRS could have avoided this entire mess if it had sought legislation to regulate tax preparers instead of trying to reinterpret an ancient statute to do it unilaterally. We citizens, whether left or right, should worry a lot more than we do about federal agencies that "interpret" old laws to find alleged authority to regulate without representation.
The federal bureaucracy needs a complete overhaul from top to bottom. The next president should make that his/her first, second, and third priority. (Obama doesn't have the management knowledge or experience to do it.)
ReplyDeleteThe problem isn't procurement. Those $800-hammer purchases on the U.S. Defense Department's books hide money for intelligence operations. The problem lies in other areas.
In addition, the federal bureaucracy in Washington is full of permanent employees with left-wing ideas. (I would estimate 85 percent of the permanent employees outside the CIA, NSA, and Defense Department fall into this category.) That's one reason why things never seem to change. We need major efforts to make the managers and employees under the political appointees in the executive branch nonpartisan again.
- DEC (Jungle Trader)
Why exempt the CIA, NSA, and DoD from that estimate? I doubt it's much lower than that.
DeleteRoot and branch.
ReplyDeletefor example .....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/the-most-ridiculous-law-of-2013-so-far-it-is-now-a-crime-to-unlock-your-smartphone/
Sorry, this URL works.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/the-most-ridiculous-law-of-2013-so-far-it-is-now-a-crime-to-unlock-your-smartphone/272552/
The Most Ridiculous Law of 2013 (So Far): It Is Now a Crime to Unlock Your Smartphone