The single time I've ever had an issue with the IRS - I forgot to sign a 1080X - They sent me a letter, I signed it, and everything was perfectly fine. They collect a massive amount of payments and paperwork every year. I don't know how you could say they're barely functioning.

The DMV on the other hand is the joke in American culture about incompetent bureaucracies.

Count yourself very lucky that you never had an issue with the IRS. I had to deal with a mistake that the IRS made erroneously and even after 4 years it is still not resolved. Every 6 months I get a letter that the IRS still hasn't bothered to look into it and I'm guessing they likely never will.

DMV is the butt of all the jokes, but atleast you can walk into a DMV office and a real person, however annoyed they might be will try to help you.

Is the IRS well known as a barely functioning behemoth? There's no shortage of animus towards them, but it's generally seemed closer to "I don't like the agency that takes my money" than "this agency is incompetent."

They're seriously understaffed. Forget about the partisan politics for the reasons behind it but a terrible side effect of this lack of resources is that they only go after the low hanging fruits to audit. Like Joey Banana who forgot to report a few hundred dollars of income will get audited but complicated tax evasion schemes go unaudited.

I agree with that, thank you for clarifying!

Behemoth ? yes.

Impractical for US citizens ? yes.

Barely functioning ? The IRS will find you halfway across the world for an unpaid $20.

Isn't a lot of the reason that they are impractical that there are powerful organizations lobbying for taxes to be painful and complicated to pay. E.g. Turbotax and the Americans for Tax Reform

I’m Californian and I have a much easer time dealing with Federal departments than state departments. For one, Federal websites actually work properly.

Sadly the Federal Government seems to take CA as an example of what proper government should aspire to be....