The IRS does not cope well with chaos.
At the Internal Revenue Service, the internet has become so patchy since President Donald Trump ordered remote workers back to overcrowded offices that staff are resorting to personal hotspots, crashing their computers at the height of tax processing season, two IRS officials told Reuters. The IRS did not respond to a request for comment.
No wonder we have to fill out all those forms to file our taxes. The IRS lacks the computing capacity to calculate the amount I have to pay…except, wait a minute, then how do they know what I owe? The Social Security administration is also struggling.
At the Social Security Administration, lawyers, statisticians and other high-ranking agency officials are being sent from the Baltimore headquarters to regional offices to replace veteran claims processors who have been fired or taken buyouts from the Trump administration.
But most of the new arrivals don’t know how to do the job, leading to longer wait times for disabled and elderly Americans who depend on these benefits, according to two people familiar with the situation. Asked about the changes, an SSA official said in an email that reassigned employees “have vast knowledge about our programs and services.”
I’m trying to imagine what that is like — the few times I’ve had to work with the university’s bureaucracy, I’ve been completely lost. I have vast knowledge about biology and our curriculum, but please don’t ask me to process tuition payments. Those are highly skilled jobs! OSHA is also feeling the pain.
In its drive to cut costs, DOGE says it has canceled almost 500,000 government credit cards. It has placed a $1 limit on many others, and centralized decision making within some agency headquarters. That means managers in some regional offices can’t buy basic supplies.
At one center at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, it took a scientist a month to get authorization to buy $200 of dry ice to preserve urine samples, a purchase usually made at a local supermarket. Because the administration has barred many employees from making purchases, a colleague in another regional office who still has a government credit card paid for the dry ice, but it had to be shipped to the lab – at an additional cost of $100, according to a source familiar with the matter.
What can you buy on a credit card with a $1 limit?
They keep saying they’re saving us billions with increased efficiency, but all I see is greater inefficiency. I don’t see how that can save us any money at all. They’re just lying to us.
I’ll be curious to see if, at the end of this fiscal year, we’re deeper in the hole than last year. I predict that we will be.
We will definitely be much deeper in the hole, as spending will go up a fair bit (between increased interest rates on Federal debt and induced inefficiencies, any “savings” will be swamped) and Federal revenue will collapse. Whether the federal “government” reports fake numbers that show a much smaller increase in the deficit than is real or fake numbers that show a shrinking deficit is another issue altogether.
I knew it would be FUBAR at the IRS. So, I printed out the forms, did the calculations, attached the supporting docs, and mailed it in. At some point in the distant future I should get my $1200 refund. But, by that time, Trump will have crashed the economy, inflation will be running 20%/year, my retirement fund will be worthless, and there’ll be nothing to buy because the shelves will be empty.
The cuts at the IRS are particularly stupid.
This is the main revenue source for the Federal government.
If you cut the IRS and its staff down, then tax collections go down.
Few audits, fewer reviews, fewer checks.
One estimate by the former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, is that it will cost $100 billion a year in lost revenue.
“They’re just lying to us.“
All you need to say about anything coming out of the mouth of anyone in the current US administration.
“I’ll be curious to see if, at the end of this fiscal year, we’re deeper in the hole than last year.”
No need to wait to find out. The government is already spending more this year than they did over the same period of 2024 and 2023:
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-doge-government-spending-increases-5903992d
DOGE is a lie. It has saved nothing.
Of course they’re lying to us! Don’t expect the media to report it. Congress is dead. Maybe Droopy Dog Schumer will fix it by writing a strong letter.
Unless you are being paid in chickens (and it could happen yet, considering the current economy and the price of eggs) the IRS knows how much you made because you are not self-employed.
Way back when you first started your job? Your employer required you to fill out a W-4, which let your employer know your current filing status and number of dependents so they would know how much federal and state income tax to withhold from your paycheck. The W-2 your employer sends you is also sent to the IRS. So… they already know how much you made, who you are married to and how many kids you have, which is usually a pretty good indicator of how much you will owe (if you owe. If you are getting a refund and don’t file, you are leaving money on the table.)
The IRS and Social Security, like a lot of the federal agencies, runs on Fortran and Cobol programming, on computer systems that date back to the Kennedy administration. (The US nuclear program runs on floppy disks. I still wonder where they are getting replacement disks at this point.) Keeping that in mind, it’s a miracle that any federal computer system works AT ALL. If anyone wanted to make the government more efficient, get modern hardware and software. Also, you just crammed all the federal employees into inadequate workspaces with the completely halfassed return to office memo, what did you think was going to happen? That the outdated computer networks would magically expand to handle the increased workload?
Why would you expect any other outcome? Federal employees who could retire, did, as compared to sticking around for the shitshow. Any probationary employee, knowing that they would be the first to be cut, took the buyout and who can blame them? The end result was a mad stampede for the exit and when the dust settled, nothing but crickets where viable and essential federal agencies used to be.
BTW, DOGE’s latest cost-cutting measure was to put a number of senior citizens on the death list, halt their benefits and then demand that the prove that they are in fact alive and verify their identity in person. At a Social Security office, of which there are now a lot fewer.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/03/24/social-security-fraud-doge-cuts-dead/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/04/social-security-layoffs-trump-musk/
Apparently that panicked even the cultists, which resulted in one of the few DOGE retreats.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/04/09/social-security-phone-doge-cuts/
Because, sure, let’s get Grandma or Grandpa AND their wheelchair/oxygen tank/IV down to the Social Security office to prove that they are still alive and are eligible to receive Medicare and their Social Security checks.
I changed my withholding several years ago so I end up owing every year and can earn 3-4% interest in a money market account before I have to write a check.
If knew things were going to get this FUBAR, I would have fudged my tax returns to my benefit, and probably could have gotten away with it.
But, unlike MAGA and their Dear Con-Man Leader, I have integrity and honesty and believe in doing my civic duty.
there is a plan, whether there’s been any work to actually implement it or not. i’ll be interested now to see the first hints that it is being set in motion. might be they’re counting on the destruction to make the “fix” seem brilliant and amazing. they are, of course, going to privatize and politicize all functions of government.
i can see how it’ll work at SSA IRS and similar bureaucracies. let the agencies crumble under the weight of being mortally understaffed for a while, then say “we have no choice but to hire an army of non-GS non-union people contracted thru random shitbird corporation.” the new hires help ease the work load, whether they can do so competently or not, and become the excuse to finish what they started and fire the last of the GS and union employees.
there are a lot of problems with this plan, but assuming the wrecked gov doesn’t lead to ruin and revolution, there’s still one big fundamental issue. how do you make money at this? SSA and IRS can actually pay for themselves with tax dollars, which’ll be lining shareholder pockets in the future. but many agencies provide services that will never generate revenue, without some zany horseshit going on.
then if they stick the landing and get what they want – a privatized america where the fed itself is reduced to brazenly corrupt party bosses “consulting” with corporate-run agencies on how to make them more nazi – there’s the problem that capitalism does nothing but enshittify and exploit. past a certain point, the profits are outweighed by reducing society to rubble.
honestly, i doubt they’ll stick the landing. they’ve been too impatient, too hasty. i have no idea what their failure state will look like. we’ll all get to find out tho.
I work with Senior and Disabled low income as a volunteer.
That would be all but impossible for most of them.
.1. Almost all of them rely on Social Security for almost all or all of their income.
It isn’t much.
It is enough to survive on and food stamps and Medicaid help.
More or less none of them have cars because they can’t afford them.
.2. A lot of them also have various cognitive problems.
Strokes are common, traumatic brain injuries, various medical conditions such as Parkinsons and age related dementias.
They do OK in routine, familiar surroundings but navigating mass transit to a distant Social Security office would be impossible. They wouldn’t get too far and would get lost.
.3. There used to be some Social Safety net government programs that would help them. They’ve either had their funding cut or are closed to new clients due to lack of staff and money.
In a worst case scenario, they would end up homeless on the street and this would be a death sentence since they would be more or less helpless.
In fact, some of them were homeless on the streets until social services helped them out.
This whole idea is cruel beyond imagining to a very vulnerable population.
also, i don’t know that SSA has walked back the in-office requirement at all, just stuck a lot of caveats on it. on the plus side, the news articles about the subject overstated the problem. people who are already on benefits and have no changes to report were not suspended pending this verification. it’s only been an issue for people who needed to change direct deposit info (which are many thousands a day) or do an initial application for benefits (again that’s a lot of people).
@10 The cruelty has always been the point with MAGA. Exhibit A, Kristi Noem.
Entitlement programs make up the largest part of the US budget. Social Security and Medicare are the two federal programs that lifted the majority of seniors out of abject poverty, some of the most successful federal programs in US history. Drowning vulnerable senior citizens in bureaucracy to the point where they give up and don’t get their entitlements is how DOGE and MAGA plan on cutting the entitlement programs, a Republican dream for decades.
Just remember, the cruelty is a feature to these sociopathic freaks, not a bug. They don’t care if people die. Not seniors, not kids.
silverhalide @12: The other part of DOGE is to destroy all the federal agencies that are responsible for regulating and taxing Muskrat’s companies.
“Unless you are being paid in chickens (and it could happen yet, considering the current economy and the price of eggs) the IRS knows how much you made because you are not self-employed.”
Um, that’s PZ’s drollery. The joke.
I usually get a refund, so I did my taxes as early as possible this year in anticipation of Trump/Musk chaos. This is one of those times I hate being right.
Is the $1 credit card something other people can apply money to? Is it a way of tracking spending?
That one seems really weird to me. Is it a way to show they’ve issued lots of credit cards (one metric) but keep spending (another metric) from happening? This seems like management “logic” to me.
In case it will give you schadenfreude, K-mart and other stores Trump voters depend on will increasingly get empty shelves in a couple weeks time, because China used to make so much of their stuff.
Birger, can’t really prognosticate other than in general; it’s all obviously ad hoc and changes dramatically every few days, if not daily.
cf. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/programs/geoeconomics-center/trump-tariff-tracker/
(How much tax right now on electronic goods from China? ;)
The fundamental problem — the reason that anyone needs more than two sides of a sheet of paper to calculate their entire tax return — is that the tax system is being required to do things that taxation by itself doesn’t do, instead of direct payments for “approved activities” from the government to those engaging in them. The “Deep State bureaucrats” who would handle programs like the way home mortgages are done in the UK (their equivalent of the “home mortgage interest” deduction is instead taken directly against the loan payments) would generally impose less red tape, tailored to what they actually need, than the current nightmare. Plus, as a bonus, they have expertise in their areas of interest, meaning that they’re more likely to deter and detect fraud.
But, because that would mean some segments of society would be getting paid money by the government that other segments of society think is undeserved, Not Going to Happen. And every so often, someone like the loon who was the Chief Executive from 1981-89 will get up and lie about nonexistant welfare queens… and then fail to acknowledge that any that do exist got caught by the Deep State bureacrats (else we wouldn’t have the story, would we?).
The biggest problem with American taxation isn’t “Deep State bureaucrats”, it’s vested business interests lobbying Congress.
The Republicans have been working to make our government agencies inefficient and trouble to navigate. They want these systems to get so broken and useless that when they decide to eliminate them, we will be happy not to have to deal with them anymore. Very similar method to demonizing the immigrants. Get the people angry about it, make them hate it and then deport (eliminate) it.
The question becomes how long before the MAGA crowd stops believing the lies and figures out their lives are gonna suck. I don’t have high hopes for this.
drew at 16 – I thought maybe the $1 limit is used as a way to temporarily cancel some people’s credit cards, because tweaking the limit later is more practical than issuing new cards.
These people were raised to both be incompetent and believe in their own superiority.
When reality smacks in their face they 1) deny reality, so everyone who disagrees must be stupid and evil and 2) search for ways to assert their self-image and their power, which usually takes the form of greed and cruelty.
The prime examples of this, Musk and Trump, have spent their lives battling this cognitive dissonance between what they deep down know they are, and how they were taught to see themselves.
I saw the upcoming shitshow. I filed early. I requested they send me a check (old fashioned so simpler and their machines are already set up for that even if they fire people) instead of transferring to my account. Then I ran to the ATM and deposited that check instantly.
If you are in California and still haven’t filed, check and see if you are given a delay due to the disaster of the fires. Don’t file in October when required, a lot of other people will be doing that. Instead try July.
Felon47 cut funding for PBS and NPR. He really hates honest liberals. When my kids were little PBS children’s programs were the only tv they were allowed to watch. I spent years only watching PBS and the occasional movie. I’m in shock 😭