THE TWO ACTUALLY TEND TO GO TOGETHER: The IRS: Not Just Thuggish, But Also Incompetent.

The report shows that little oversight at the IRS has led to erroneous refunds sent to dead taxpayers, millions of extra tax credits mistakenly allocated to the Highway Trust Fund and major miscalculations of how much the agency is owed in unpaid taxes, among other issues.
GAO auditors found calculating errors totaling at least $829 million between 10 taxpayer accounts with balances equal to or exceeding $32 million, which went undetected by the agency’s internal review procedures.

“…IRS does not have a detailed listing, or subsidiary ledger that accurately tracks and accumulates unpaid tax assessments and their status on an ongoing basis,” the report said.

The IRS also lacked an effective policy to identify deceased taxpayers- – leading the agency to send refunds to dead Americans. . . . Add to this an almost comical mistake regarding the amount of quarterly excise tax revenues distributed to the Airport and Airway Trust Fund and the Highway Trust Fund. For example, in March 2012, IRS added $138 million in kerosene credits to the HTF when it should have subtracted $166 million. In another instance, IRS erroneously omitted $3 million in collections from the AATF for the third quarter of 2012.

The country’s in the very best of hands.