Say it isn’t so! The IRS apparently is not sure how many people they are going to need to hire or even how much implementing Obamacare will cost. Well one thing is for sure and that is it was previously determined to be around 16,500 new IRS agents that needed to be hired.
I’ll let you do the math on that one. Just remember that federal employees average greater pay than any of us in the private sector. Also keep in mind that many of these, if not all of them, will receive a pension as well. That’s right Obamacare is the gift that keeps on giving long after these new agents are gone from their offices. They’ll still be on the federal tit.
APNews reports,
The changes will require new regulations, forms and publications, new computer programs and a big new outreach program to explain it all to taxpayers and tax professionals. Businesses that don’t claim an exemption will have to prove they offer health insurance to employees.
The health care law “includes the largest set of tax law changes in more than 20 years,” according to the Treasury inspector general who oversees the IRS. The agency will have to hire thousands of workers to manage it, requiring significant budget increases that already are being targeted by congressional Republicans determined to dismantle the president’s signature initiative.
“Knowing the complexity of the health law, there’s no question that the IRS is going to struggle with this,” said Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., R-La., chairman of the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee. “The IRS wants more resources. Well, we need to start digging down into what are they doing with the resources and personnel.”
As to the 16,500 additional auditors, agents and various other employees that will be needed “to investigate and collect billions of new taxes from Americans,” IRS spokesman Dean Patterson claims in an email “That is a made-up number with no basis in fact. The 2012 budget calls for about 1,200 employees for the IRS to implement the (Affordable Care Act), and the vast majority of those employees are needed to build technology infrastructure to support payments like the new tax credits for individuals and small businesses.”
I’m sorry folks, but honestly are we really to believe what Mr. Patterson is saying here? The man is delusional. Budget? What budget? There is no budget that they are actually operating with.
Furthermore he wants us to believe the “vast majority” of the 1,200 people he cites are going to be basically working on software. This man is not living in the real world or he is lying. since he works under the Obama administration, my guess is the latter. Does he have any idea what kind of man power they will need to enforce this stuff on the millions, yes millions of people, who will not purchase insurance and who won’t be willing to pay the new taxes either? I’m sure he hasn’t taken any of this into account, nor has he taken into account how many new attorneys they will need to be in court in all of these cases. This is typical federal government BS.
The only thing not based in fact is Mr. Patterson’s statements and I would be willing to put what I make in a year on the fact that by this time next year, should Obamacare continue as law, that I’ll be writing on thousands of new IRS employees.
Republicans apparently mocked Patterson as well. The top four GOP representatives on the Ways and Means Committee wrote, “The agency’s repeated lack of transparency to Congress and its failure to provide accountability to the American taxpayers raises fundamental concerns about implementation authorities vested to the IRS.”
