Let's Cut Some Spending: $15 million for an IRS tax filing system

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In our Let's Cut Some Spending series, ForAmerica chronicles the many ways Washington wastes YOUR tax dollars - and as you’ll see, the list is endless.

Today’s offering: $15 million for an IRS tax filing system!

The Hill reports:

Some of the most frequently criticized provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act are related to funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). While the focus has mostly been on the impact of hiring 87,000 new IRS agents, the legislation also included $15 million for the agency to create its own direct tax filing system. The Fiscal Responsibility Act rescinded $1.39 billion for the IRS, which impacted hiring, but not the proposed new software program.

The concept of giving the IRS the power to create and run its own tax filing system has been around since before the turn of the century. In 1995, the IRS signed an agreement with the National Technical Information Service to create Cyberfile and spent $17 million on the program before it was cancelled. As the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted in its Aug. 26, 1996, report, Cyberfile “was poorly planned and managed.”

Hey, with a $33 TRILLION national debt, what's another $15 million on a government-run tax filing system that has proven to be a waste of money in the past?

The next time a politician calls for raising taxes - ANY kind of taxes - remember this.

The worst thing we could do is give Washington more of our money.