quote:

Originally posted by Plugugly:

quote:

Originally posted by KevinCW:

Officers at my dept are issued 1 box of 50 rounds per month for our handgun (practice ammo) for a total of 600 rounds. We shoot between 400 and 600 rounds additional on qualification days issued on the day of.

Officers with patrol rifles are issued 3 20 round boxes a month of practice ammo (720 rounds) and shoot approx 100 rounds on annual qualification.

So that is 1820 to 2020 per officer per year, NOT including any optional classes each one volunteers to take.

That doesn't seem out of line to me.

Also, we change out our duty ammo once a year, 50 rounds of JHP for the pistol, and 100 rounds of JHP for the rifle each year.

So add 150 to those above numbers.

That's at least 2k rounds per officer, per year.

Seems like those guys ARE NOT training enough.... Cause we aren't with the above round counts.

I had to buy my own ammo. And guns. And duty gear. And body armor. And just barely missed out on having to buy my own patrol car. I envy your agency's budget.

We aren't without our own BS, but THIS we do well.

I had to buy my own ammo. And guns. And duty gear. And body armor. And just barely missed out on having to buy my own patrol car. I envy your agency's budget.[/QUOTE]

Damn! That's insane. I hope you can find another department that treats you better than that.

In case you were worried, Joe Biden is back! He beetled out of quarantine yesterday in time to get a little more R&R at the beach before he rolls up his sleeves and gets back to work today. Back to work dealing with the Taiwan situation and solving inflation by signing a gigantic morbidly-obese Democrat spending bill that not a single Republican voted for.

According the Biden, the best way to defeat inflation is to keep printing money until the inflation goes away. They titled the bill the “Inflation Reduction Act,” and one of its main goals is “to make the tax code FAIRER.” So you know what that means: it not only vaporizes a historic amount of tax dollars ($739 billion), but it’s also about to increase your taxes, too. Fortunately, Biden signed another bill in quarantine to hire 87,000 new IRS agents, because they’ll need a lot of new people to help siphon all that money out of the economy.

One of the many, many new laws in the bill is a minimum 15% tax “on corporations:”

Twitter for @POTUSPresident Biden @POTUS:

"We're going to restore some fairness in the tax code by imposing a corporate minimum tax of 15 percent on billion-dollar corporations.
When the Inflation Reduction Act passes, they're finally going to start paying their fair share."
August 7th 2022

As I’ve explained many times, corporations don’t PAY taxes. They only COLLECT taxes. Corporations just snap any across-the-board taxes onto to the price of their goods and services. So corporate taxes INCREASE PRICES. I forgot what increasing prices is called. It’s “in-“ something. I can’t remember.

Anyway, what happened was Biden’s insane “Build Back Better” plan failed to pass because it would cause too much inflation. So they just renamed it the “Inflation Reduction Act,” waited a couple months, and — blliiiiing! — it magically passed. Kamala Harris broke the tie in the Senate.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com...ost&utm_medium=email

I would have no problem with a modest increase in the IRS budget to back fill some of the normal attrition that happens. That's not to expand auditing, but rather to make sure the phone gets answered and routine functions of the IRS are maintained. As has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the IRS is understaffed. But to hire this many auditors is ridiculous and in the end a lot of Democrats who think this is a good idea will regret it. I'll explain why.

First I have to say that these auditors will be hired through normal civil service hiring rules. I have to respectfully disagree with those who think that only an army of far left loons will be hired. What's bad about this is more about the mission of these new hires. That's the bad idea. When I got hired nobody asked me about my politics. I have done hiring using civil service rules. I asked nobody about their politics. The fact is that there is a veteran's preference. I hired my share of veterans. More than a few wound up driving to work with Trump stickers on their car. What about Lois Lerner you ask? Well sure, will there be ass holes included in the new hires, no doubt. But conservatives will get hired too. I know plenty of conservatives who worked with me.

Here's why plenty of Democrat voters will wind up regretting this. These auditors are going to be expected to bring in revenue. They are going to go after the low hanging fruit. It may surprise many to learn that people making less than a paltry $25,000 a year get audited at a rate five times higher than folks with higher income. That's where the easy money is. Unreported tips to waitresses, uber drivers etc. Let's talk about the earned income tax credit. This is basically a reverse income tax where you get back more than you pay in taxes. Only low income people qualify. When I worked at SSA, we used to find that people on SSI (a welfare program) would wind up getting money from IRS. When you check it out, you find that they got a refund from IRS because they filed a self employment return for a small amount from some totally non-existent bogus business. Then get a nice refund from IRS for a profit. There are people who recruit low income people to file these bogus returns, then split the proceeds with the "tax payer." All you would need to do is audit every single self employment return who reported income of say $15,000 or less. At least half of the returns would be bogus.

So we will see what happens with this. The fact is that very wealthy people are already audited all the time. Trump was audited every year for years. The only place to go to bring in more money are middle and lower class people. Check this out:

https://trac.syr.edu/tracirs/latest/679/

^^^^^^^^^^
Thanks for posting.

quote:

Originally posted by DennisM:
__________________________________________

quote:

Originally posted by DennisM:

and the outrage by Congress is sensationalism and nothing else.

*Horseshit*

Yeah, those simple mathematics are really horseshit. ... blah, blah, blah ...that next year's funding bill won't allow for purchases.

But don't let that get in the way of a good outrage-and-posturing session.

DennisM, we were never communicating about the same idea.

It's not about whether each agent gets 100 rounds or 10,000 rounds of practice ammo on the taxpayer's overdrawn charge account.

Its about every freaking one of the hundreds of Federal agencies having its own cadre of armed mercenary-minded soldiers.

Its about every freaking one of the hundreds of Federal agencies having its own cadre of armed mercenary-minded soldiers.[/QUOTE]

Some degree of specialization is necessary if you expect federal agencies to be accountable, people committing fraud be arrested, and convictions to be obtained. The Social Security Administration's Office of the Inspector General has armed agents who make arrests and work on a variety of issues related to program integrity.

Take a look at the last semi annual report.
Some highlights:

$90,922,893
Monetary Accomplishments
This number includes court-ordered restitution, recoveries, settlements, judgments, fines, civil monetary penalties (CMP), and estimated savings
resulting from our investigations.

122,966
Total Fraud or Criminal Allegations Received. This number includes 85,295 regular allegations and 37,671 imposter-scam related allegations

294
Criminal Convictions. This number reflects the outcome of a criminal prosecution, which concludes in a judgment that the defendant is guilty of a
crime charged

428
Total Subpoenas Issued. This number is the total number of OIG subpoenas issued during this reporting period.

183
Task Forces/Working Groups. During the reporting period we were members of 183 task forces/working groups. This includes 25 related to COVID-19 fraud.

211
Safety and Threats:
During the reporting period, the OIG received 211 allegations related to employee safety issues, of which 79 involved alleged assault or harassment,
over 93 were associated with threats against SSA employees or buildings, and 39 involved other safety threats. OI opened 48 cases and closed 53
cases nationwide related to employee safety.

If there was no SSA OIG, who would do this work? Who would make these arrests and get these convictions? Who would recover all of the money recovered by SSA OIG? Who? Maybe your FBI? They are far too busy investigating Trump, checking on parents who object to curriculum issues at school board meetings, and things like that. Sarcasm aside, without the OIG the vast majority of these issues would never be addressed. Before I retired I dealt with a whole host of issues from fraud to employee threats. One of my female employees was stalked by a mentally ill man. I had to get extra security for her. That didn't last too long because this guy wound up raping another girl and is now locked up. If every agency had no OIG agents and every single potential criminal issue was referred to the FBI, I can assure you that a lot of criminal issues would never get investigated. Here is the last semi-annual OIG report: https://oig.ssa.gov/

The Dems HATE that Joe and Jane Schmoe are doing side gigs and selling stuff on eBay/Etsy/FB Marketplace and not paying taxes on that.

IMO, THAT is what these 87,000 new IRS agents are all about. They only want Joe and Jane dependent on the government to be able to survive.

It's about targeting those making less than 400K but without W-2 jobs (i.e., farmers and small business owners that 'pay themselves'). They are the ones in the crosshairs.

quote:

ll you would need to do is audit every single self employment return who reported income of say $15,000 or less. At least half of the returns would be bogus.

So we will see what happens with this. The fact is that very wealthy people are already audited all the time. Trump was audited every year for years. The only place to go to bring in more money are middle and lower class people.

Yep.

quote:

Originally posted by sorenson:
It's about targeting those making less than 400K but without W-2 jobs (i.e., farmers and small business owners that 'pay themselves'). They are the ones in the crosshairs.

And yep.
If you have W-2 income it's easy for the IRS. If you don't have W-2 income it gets complicated for everyone, both the tax payer and the IRS. There are grey areas. The IRS doesn't like that.

BUT targeting small businesses will ultimately be unproductive for everyone. It reduces economic activity.

This is not about collecting revenue. They don’t care about fiscal responsibility in any shade, form or kind. It’s the destruction of the middle class.

On purpose.

When will people see the reality of what’s happening here?

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
When will people see the reality of what’s happening here?

When they come knocking on their door.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
This is not about collecting revenue. They don’t care about fiscal responsibility in any shade, form or kind. It’s the destruction of the middle class.

On purpose.

When will people see the reality of what’s happening here?

They also WANT the price of energy sky high. They also WANT to destroy the food supply. You will eat the bugs...

The Goal of the “Elite” With All Their Climate Hysteria Is to Wipe out the Food Supply and Depopulate the Planet
https://noqreport.com/2022/08/...populate-the-planet/

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:

quote:

Originally posted by lastmanstanding:
I thought they added thousands of auditors during the Obama regime to target taxpayers? I know we haven't been audited nor do I know anyone who has been. The WSJ likes to print stuff like this. Last I heard the IRS is way understaffed according to our accountant.

I know several CPAs primarily in tax practice. The IRS is understaffed and this is an attempt to correct that.

I am conflicted. The tax code sucks. But I don't cheat on my taxes and why should anyone else get away with it?

I'd love to have a rational tax code, but I don't like cheaters, either.

I’m not conflicted.

If the IRS were a non-partisan agency that actually had their stuff in one sack, responded to taxpayer questions, was responsible for the errors the agents made in giving the taxpayers wrong information, honestly sought to understand the situation and assess taxes accurately based on the actual situation, rather than trying to intimidate folks into paying what they don’t owe, then I might be, but none of that is true.

Sure, I’d bet there are a few good IRS agents (just like there are good FBI agents?), but I doubt they are in the majority, and I have no expectations that this infusion of money to the agency will serve to do anything more than further weaponize it.

For record, I don’t cheat on my taxes either, and I prefer that nobody did and that anyone who did got caught and suffered enough for it that they wouldn’t do it again. That said, I suspect that this weaponization will result in a lot of wasted time and expense for innocent folks and little, if any improvement in compliance. I guess we’ll see how it goes…

quote:

Damn! That's insane. I hope you can find another department that treats you better than that.

After getting screwed over three times in just a few weeks, I told them to put my commission card in the shredder, where it belongs. Went from $13 an hour, shit benefits, and monthly pay to $18.25 an hour, great benefits, and weekly pay.

The new jail supervisor has to blow into an interlock device to start her car to go to work. Her predecessor can't function unless he takes a 15 minute smoke break every hour, which gets him out of much work.

They actually had the nerve to try to get me to come back recently...

... the job listing for IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agents ... hardly surprising ...


Major Duties

- Adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially in maintaining honesty and integrity.
- Work a minimum of 50 hours per week, which may include irregular hours, and be on-call 24/7, including holidays and weekends.
- Maintain a level of fitness necessary to effectively respond to life-threatening situations on the job.
- Carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force, if necessary.
- Be willing and able to participate in arrests, execution of search warrants, and other dangerous assignments.

IRS CISA hiring - major duties

Does not pay that much for the duties required.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Does not pay that much for the duties required.

But there are incentives!
Almost sounds like commissions on every dollar seized:

While Grade 13, Step 10 is the highest grade a special agent can obtain, our agency offers numerous management opportunities that will propel you into Grade 14 and Grade 15 positions (or the equivalent thereof). Those with a mind for career advancement can also aspire to enter our Executive ranks, which offers a pay scale that exceeds the GS and GL pay scales.

Other Pay Increases
In addition to advancing through the Pay Scale, Congress can also authorize annual pay increases for federal employees. These amounts vary each year and there is no guarantee that they will be offered. If they do, all Pay Scales are adjusted upwards by that amount.

Other Pay Incentives
Throughout your career, you could be awarded annual Performance Awards which are accompanied with a pay bonus based on your rating on your annual evaluation. These amounts vary and are not certain; however, they offer a nice incentive to perform at your highest level.

Still there are other much safer governmental positions that pay a lot more. I believe there are no straight commissions for dollars collected. I have know people who worked for the IRS. Their only friends are other IRS employees.

From the time this insanity of 87k gun toting agents was announced, I believe they are posturing to back up the ATF. There is no goddamn reason for the IRS to be armed with anything other than a ball point pen.
________________________________________________
To be absolutely clear, I am 100% totally and completely opposed to hiring 87,000 new IRS employees. It is wrong. It will be counterproductive. It's going to hit the middle class and even some low income people such as waitresses and others with cash income. However, it's always best to be accurate. The huge majority of the 87,000 new hires will be Revenue Agents (RAs). They conduct tax audits. A few will be Revenue Officers (ROs) and will perform collections actions such as garnishing bank accounts and wages. RAs and ROs do NOT carry guns. Only Special Agents of the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) carry firearms. The cost to the government (read - tax payers) is a lot higher for CID agents than it is for RAs and ROs. The training is far more expensive and lengthy. If they are interested is collecting money ASAP, they are not going to waste time training CID agents. NO reader of my post should interpret it as an endorsement of this insane idea. I oppose the hiring of these 87,000 people completely. But almost all of these 87,000 new hires will NOT be armed.