Courtesy of Mediaite:
John Oliver already knows that Americans have a hate-hate relationship with the IRS: “Dealing with them is obligatory, it often functions badly, and it combines the two things that everyone hates the most: someone taking their money, and math.” But, he argues, the IRS deserves our grudging respect.
First, it’s really not the IRS’s fault, and it certainly doesn’t help that they’re loathed and undercut at every turn. Isn’t it bad that people call them Nazis and attack them and give them so much hate? Isn’t it bad that the employees — the “human version of Ambien” — have to do some boring, boring work? And isn’t it bad that the reason that the IRS has to go after you, is because Congress is literally telling them how to do it, and then slashed their funding by 20%? (Let’s not even talk about their old backwards-ass tax data, stored on actual magnetic tapes.)
Okay, I admit it, I did feel a little sorry for them.
And what's even more impressive he kind of made me like Michale Bolton a little bit as well. Which, for the record, is a much harder sell.
Besides in my opinion any agency that the conservatives attack as often as they do the IRS, must be doing SOMETHING right.
The Jack Sparrow song from SNL with MB was pretty good. The IRS song didn't really make me care about some park supplies guy from bumf*ck ND but I think I may have a greater respect for the anus.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI6CfKcMhjY
Also, it did make me want to spout lines from Office Space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03lrL9CFWxM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADgS_vMGgzY
Truth: every time I have had to communicate with the IRS - because I owe money - they've been accommodating. Maybe it helps that I am nice to them and thank them for their help.
ReplyDeleteI've found it interesting that the Republicans that constantly badmouth the IRS and want to dismantle it (i.e. Ted Cruz) are the wealthy folks that have always used it to their advantage. They rarely pay much in taxes - write so many things off, etc.
ReplyDeleteIsn't the IRS suppose to be the method in paying for our government/country? There are necessities in government even though the Republican rile against it.
Problem is that the poor and middle class are taxed and the rich pay little. Fucking amazing folks! We need to rewrite the laws of the IRS and send a lot of Republicans to jail!
Generally, the people at the IRS are doing a thankless job: collecting the money that keeps everything functioning and intact. Of course the GOP and the something for nothing crowd want to do away with it: it's a way to undermine our government. That only leads to chaos as things aren't managed and maintained the way they should be. They're strangling the Park Service and Forest Service because they want to sell off our public lands to the corporations who would exploit and destroy it all and the 1 percent who would do much of the same with the land that they don't add to their private fiefdoms.
ReplyDeleteM from MD.
People are also shockingly uneducated on understanding their taxes, and they just want to be angry. I experienced this year with my husband when we got our returns back. He was literally frothing when his return wasn't as much as he expected. I calmly went though it and pointed out why the IRS wasn't stealing our money. He finally agreed but preceded to rant to rant to everyone who would listen about our ridiculous income taxes, $1500.
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