Internal Revenue Service | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 2018-12-05

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Internal Revenue Service


00:02:43 1 History
00:02:52 1.1 American Civil War (1861–65)
00:04:15 1.2 Post Civil War, Reconstruction, and popular tax reform (1866–1913)
00:05:54 1.3 Post 16th Amendment (1913-present)
00:10:03 1.4 Presidential tax returns (1973)
00:11:41 1.5 Computerization (1959–present)
00:15:27 1.6 History of the IRS name
00:15:55 2 Current organization
00:18:12 2.1 Commissioner
00:19:13 2.2 Taxpayer Advocate
00:19:45 2.3 Office of Appeals
00:20:17 2.4 Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR)
00:21:03 2.5 Programs
00:21:33 3 Tax collection statistics
00:23:43 3.1 Outsourcing collection and tax-assistance
00:25:21 4 Administrative functions
00:28:36 5 Labor union
00:29:38 6 Controversies
00:32:31 7 See also



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SUMMARY
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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The government agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who is appointed to a five-year term by the President of the United States. The IRS is responsible for collecting taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of federal statutory tax law of the United States. The duties of the IRS include providing tax assistance to taxpayers and pursuing and resolving instances of erroneous or fraudulent tax filings. The IRS has also overseen various benefits programs, and enforces portions of the Affordable Care Act.

The IRS originated with the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, a federal office created in 1862 to assess the nation's first income tax, which was to raise funds for the American Civil War. The temporary measure provided over a fifth of the Union's war expenses and was allowed to expire a decade later. In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified authorizing Congress to impose a tax on income, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue was established. In 1953, the agency was renamed the Internal Revenue Service.
Though the IRS brings in most of the revenue needed to fund the federal government, its resources have been cut year after year. In 2016 the American College of Tax Counsel wrote to the Congressional leadership stating, "We have watched the agency struggle with significant decreases in funding that have caused staffing and morale issues. In our practices, we have seen the negative impact this has had on our clients, the taxpayers."In the 2017 fiscal year, the IRS processed more than 245 million returns and collected more than $3.4 trillion in gross revenue, spending 34¢ for every $100 it collected.On June 28, 2018, Bloomberg News wrote, "The agency has been reeling from budget cuts. The current budget of $11.43 billion is less than in fiscal 2008, and the IRS pared about 15 percent of its workforce over the past five years. The enforcement staff has plunged by more than 25 percent since 2010."In the 2018 fiscal year, the U.S. federal government spent $779 billion more than it brought in. It's estimated that in fiscal year 2019 the loss will be close to $1 trillion.  In fiscal year 2019 the IRS plans to cut an additional 2,200 employees.