Posted by Tina
After President Obama took office in 2008 the number of federal employees grew by
25,000 in just nine months. Who knows how many more have been hired since then. These jobs represent salaries and benefits that taxpayers must support year after year. Now in a new report from the IRS it’s revealed that the new healthcare law will require new IRS auditors. How many? A US News blogger has the details:
The Internal Revenue Service says it will need an battalion of 1,054 new auditors and staffers and new facilities at a cost to taxpayers of more than $359 million in fiscal 2012 just to watch over the initial implementation of President Obama’s healthcare reforms. Among the new corps will be 81 workers assigned to make sure tanning salons pay a new 10 percent excise tax. Their cost: $11.5 million.
“The ACA [Affordable Care Act] will require additional resources to build new IT systems; modify existing tax processing systems; provide taxpayer outreach and assistance services; make enhancements to notices, collections, and case management systems to address and resolve taxpayer issues timely and accurately; and conduct focused examinations to encourage compliance,” said the newly released IRS budget.
In its request, the IRS explained that the tax changes associated with health reform are huge. “Implementation of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 presents a major challenge to the IRS. ACA represents the largest set of tax law changes in more than 20 years, with more than 40 provisions that amend the tax laws.”
Unsaid: The requests are just the beginning, since the new healthcare program is evolving and won’t be fully implemented until about 2014.
I doubt that these expenditures are taken into consideration when the “cost” of this healthcare plan are articulated. But they should be. Obama keeps talking about living within our means. Adding to the bureaucracy won’t get us there.
Only if we stop the madness!
Ah, and 200,00 new federal jobs that we just couldn’t live without since Obama took over and George W. also added many tens of thousands in this massive ripoff jokingly called Homeland Security. If we had done nothing other than go back to work after 9/11 we would have billions ahead and no worse off from terrorism. It makes me sick to think what we’ve wasted on idiotic airport security and Homeland waste. There is no end to government’s ability to do moronic stuff to us is there?
Hindsight is always 20/20 Jack. It’s too bad we don’t have a sunset clause on some of these ideas that seemed like the right thing at the time. Since we don’t we now have a very tough situation that calls for big bites all at once! Shock therapy as opposed to a gentle massage now and then.
Growing the size of government in a stagnant economy with huge job losses is just plain NUTS!
Hi Tina and Jack,
My son and I are looking at California’s economy, and we found lists online of things like Top 100 Companies HQ’d in California, Top 100 Employers, etc.
13 of the first 20 on the Top Employers list are government entities – city, county, MOSTLY state, and maybe a military base, can’t remember. 13 out of 20! The LA police force employs 9000 people.
I asked my son what he thought, and he said it, “THAT’S UNSUSTAINABLE!”
Many of those HQ’d are manufacturers who don’t have any kind of operations in California, one who says they use overseas labor to keep costs down! Is it because of Prop 13 that they HQ here? Not that I want to get rid of Prop 13, I’m just wondering, are these corporations using California as a tax shelter? I can’t figure any other reason – besides, it’s nice here – that they would HQ here but not have any other operations.
Juanita, sometimes corporate headquarters get located in some pretty upscale places for the benefit of attracting management,but the rest of the employees are working in the low rent neighborhood where the labor is cheap and dirty. The taxes in California are so high that prop 13 probably isn’t much of a factor, unless those corp properties have been in their possession for decades. So its all about the top 2% living high while the rest have a steadily falling scale of wage and living conditions. . . all the way to last rung on the corporate ladder where life is pretty miserable.
This isn’t all bad, as Bangladesh sweatshops, etc., would not exist without them. Yeah, that still sounds bad, but for some its the difference between eating and not eating. A $2.50 a day wage for hard labor looks pretty good to those who were making .50 a day or less. Eventually this has the impact of elevating a whole society of the starving poor to something better…consumers!
China has steadily been moving up from slave wages to a not so bad off middle class that was previous unseen in their history.