Your comments includes a logical non-sequitur. You have to prove that those numbers are sufficient, large absolute numbers don't necessarily mean anything in isolation. I'm not sure how to do that, but just pointing to large numbers doesn't make an argument.

I can't speak for the IRS specifically, but I can speak for a few other agencies. The problem is most certainly not incompetence at the individual level-- I've met some of the brightest, most creative people in government IT.

The problem is an incentive structure that rewards constantly adding scope to projects. There are a lot of ways to think about why, but I tend to break it down to two things: Economics and culture.

First, economics. Money is allocated through the federal budget. This budget does not obey the normal laws of physics. There are myriad reasons why (down to the fact that the government can just go ahead and print new money sometimes), but the important thing to understand is that it's harder to remove lines from the budget than it is to add them.

Private industry has a wonderful garbage collection mechanism called "going out of business". In the public sector, projects have a tendency to keep existing. It's not because people in management want to sit around and collect an easy paycheck-- It's because they often have zero control over where the money goes. That ability belongs to congress.

Second, culture. And here, I actually am going to do some finger-pointing. Moving up in the hierarchy almost always means controlling more personnel, and vice-versa, having more people under you means you're higher in the pecking order. If you suddenly find yourself in charge of a 500-person department, well, you might be in line for a promotion to SES. This leads to a strange territorial game where high-level management has no incentive to shrink the size of projects.

The hierarchy tends to self-enforce, notably through the way it communicates[1] (Always Outlook, rarely any type of tool that allows easy communication between management and staff). This is made exponentially worse by the fact that written correspondence can and often does become public record, making it even harder for people to talk openly and honestly with one another.

I think the budget problem is unsolvable, at least by us Silicon Valley types. But one area where we can contribute is project management. Thinking about projects in terms of actual deliverables (SLAs, APIs, usage levels, etc.) and flattening communications channels would really solve a lot of problems.

[1] http://www.melconway.com/Home/Conways_Law.html

Having been part of a company that depends entirely on seasonal business (christmas), I would understand why the IRS is unable to complete technical projects.

You spend all year working on a system, then the time comes for you to demonstrate it's capabilities. It is 2 months to BIG_IMPORTANT_SEASON. A few faults are found in your solution. Not wanting to risk downtime during literally the only time your company matters, your superiors put your system on hold and you get relegated to support work.

The IRS probably works the same way. I am guessing the IT division gets about 6 months to do their work before everyone stops the presses because it's tax season and you don't fuck with stuff any time around tax season.

Fair point. But what about companies that create tax preparation software, such as TurboTax? That could be considered "seasonal" too, yet they've made great improvements over the years. A different scale of course, but same general concept. (Developing seasonally-used software)

Tax preparation isn't seasonal. Some people and companies have to do taxes quarterly, not yearly. Some taxes (payroll, sales tax, use tax, etc... in some states) have to be done monthly.

There's also all the extensions that get filed each year.

The IRS isn't limited by raw money. It does not have the authority to hire whomever it wants, to invest money in whatever it wants, or to set its own salary levels. That all requires approval by Congress. I wouldn't say that a lack of communication between the IRS and Congress is a sign of "bureaucratic incompetence".

And they're responsible for the collection of over

$3,180,000,000,000 annually

So I see no validity to your point(s).

Uh, no. The IRS's lack of budget to actually accomplish its goal has been a problem for quite a while now. They can't even afford office supplies, and they surely cannot afford to hire the people they need to accomplish their goal.

Wow. That's larger than the budget of many US states... let that sink in for a minute.

Many states have populations smaller than a single medium-sized city, so that shouldn't be that surprising.

How about this, then... I live in North Carolina. North Carolina is one of the 10 biggest states in the country (actually, #10, I think). 10 million people live here, consuming government services all day - healthcare, roads, parks, welfare checks, etc.

North Carolina's annual budget for providing all of those services is $23 billion - only twice the budget of the IRS.

> North Carolina's annual budget for providing all of those services is $23 billion - only twice the budget of the IRS.

NCDOR—the North Carolina analog of the IRS—has an annual budget of $177 million, compared to NCs total annual budget of $23 billion, or about 1/130 of the budget of the government it gathers revenue for.

IRS budget is $11.5 billion, compared to the US annual budget of $3.3 trillion. The IRS costs 1/286 of the budget of the government it gathers revenue for.

If you are going to try to say that NC makes the IRS look too expensive for what it does, you are going to need to do more than just point at the size of the state budget to make your argument.

They also have a similar number of employees: IRS - 76,832; NC State - 83,820

This is the only case in which I'm okay with bureaucratic incompetence.

You still owe them the same amount; their delay is just an adds uncertainty to the process.

Incompetence here creates an un-level playing field where the unscrupulous and wealthy can game the system to their own benefit.

As non-intuitive as it sounds, you really do want competence here.

Yes! Because paying taxes is so un-American /s