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Re:IRS faces class action lawsuit over theft of 60 million m... by bjhoops1 on Wednesday May 15, 2013 @12:21PM (#5713017)
Hell, for $25,000 I'd let anyone take a look at my medical records!

On a serious note, it's been a bad week for the IRS, but that agency is seriously struggling right now with a slashed budget and increased responsibilities. As David Cay Johnston, puts it "The IRS is drowning." http://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/the_other_irs_scand...

Re:IRS faces class action lawsuit over theft of 60 million m... by adventured on Wednesday May 15, 2013 @09:07PM (#5716231)
I wasn't aware that the IRS has in fact had its budget slashed.

The only thing I've seen is that they're expected to expand to take on Obamacare, and may not have the funding to do so.

Do you have the specific details on their budget being cut? Hasn't Obama expanded their budget in the last four years?

Re:IRS faces class action lawsuit over theft of 60 million m... by bjhoops1 on Thursday May 16, 2013 @09:51AM (#5718595)
I am struggling to find budget statistics that go back to earlier than 2010, but since that time the budget has been flat at $11.8 billion (1.5 billion less than Obama requested), and thanks to the sequester they are experiencing a $600 million cut this year. At the same time, they have been required to take on new duties and are struggling to maintain the employment they need. Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/25/us-usa-tax-irs-hea... and http://www.irs.gov/pub/newsroom/budget-in-brief-fy2013.pdf

What's absurd is that estimates of ROI on IRS funding range from 7:1 to 10:1. So it's really not about the budget. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to speculate on what's really behind the underfunding of the IRS.