[Although] the Inflation Reduction Act is enormously popular, some politicians and pundits are trying to generate hysteria about one feature: Funding for the IRS. All the false claims are distracting us from two important things: how necessary the funding increase is to reverse the longstanding underfunding of this critical government agency, and how this funding will directly help average Americans . . .
Because this bill is so popular, Republican politicians are making some pretty ludicrous claims in the last few days. So just to be clear: the audits will be focused on wealthy tax cheats and corporate tax evaders, routine audits are done through the mail (not by armed agents as Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) hilariously claims), the 87,000 new IRS staff [of all kinds, not just "agents" or tax return auditors] are to be added over a decade (meaning many will simply replace folks who are retiring), and most Americans want billionaires to follow tax law, just like most Americans do.
In addition to increased enforcement, the new IRS funding would upgrade the agency’s technology and efficiency, helping average Americans get their tax refunds quicker. It’s clear underfunding is a problem: In the last three years alone, the number of unprocessed tax returns nearly doubled, according to the Congressional Research Service. At the same time, the number of calls from taxpayers that IRS agents were able to address dropped to less than 1 in 5 calls answered.
"Why does the IRS need $80 billion? Just look at its cafeteria."
quote
It’s part of what the IRS calls the “Pipeline”: a 1970s-era assembly line used to process tax returns at several locations around the country. And it might give you a sense of why Congress is on the verge of handing the agency $80 billion through the Inflation Reduction Act — not only for more enforcement but also for tech modernization.
As of July 29, the IRS had a backlog of 10.2 million unprocessed individual returns. Blame the pandemic, sure, but also the agency’s embarrassingly outdated, paper-based system, which leaves stacks and stacks of returns cluttering shelves, hallways and even the cafeteria.
On the Pipeline, paper tax returns aren’t scanned into computers; instead, IRS employees manually keystroke the numbers from each document into the system, digit by digit.
Taxpayers are trapped in this time warp because Congress has systemically underinvested in the IRS. Its funding was cut for most of the past decade, despite the agency receiving evermore responsibilities: stimulus checks, child tax credit payments, Obamacare enforcement, foreign bank account tracking and, lately, hunting down Russian yachts. Without reliable, long-term funding guarantees, the IRS has struggled to upgrade its systems.
I recently took a (chaperoned) tour of the Pipeline, which is usually off-limits to journalists. Imagine Willy Wonka’s secretive chocolate factory, but instead of gumdrops and lollipops it’s ... paper. Everywhere, paper.
This is an interactive photo-essay that starts with what was originally an IRS cafeteria in Austin... now repurposed into a huge storeroom for folders of paper tax returns.
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 08-21-2022).]
Has Congress voted to exempt itself as an institution, or exempt any U.S. Senators or members of the U.S. House of Representatives from IRS audits? That's what the author of this Twitter message from just the other day apparently wants people to believe. Reuters "Fact Check" says...
No. It didn't happen. Congress has done no such thing.
The IRS certainly isn’t adding 87,000 armed agents. It isn’t even adding 87,000 agents. In fact, it’s not even adding 87,000 employees.
When you figure in attrition (current funding doesn’t let the IRS fill all vacancies), Treasury officials tell me, the expected increase in personnel would be more like 40,000, over the course of a decade — which would merely restore IRS staffing to around the 117,000 it had in 1990.
Only about 6,500 of the new hires would be “agents.” The rest would be customer-service representatives, data specialists and the like.
And fewer than 1 percent of the new hires would be armed. (The IRS job posting [that was misleadingly cited by Republican Senator Rick Scott of Florida] [and that actually] predated the new law, was specifically for such law-enforcement personnel.) Such officers, who go after drug rings and Russian oligarchs, have been part of the IRS for more than a century.
As for the IRS coming after “hardworking Americans,” Treasury says the new law will result in a “lower likelihood of audit” for ordinary taxpayers, because technology upgrades will enable the IRS to target the actual tax cheats — the super-rich — for more audits. The wealthiest 1 percent defraud the government, and fellow taxpayers, of more than $160 billion a year.
He ends with this:
quote
The media startup Grid found that Republican members of Congress tweeted the “87,000 agents” falsehood hundreds of times, while Fox News has repeated it more than 90 times this month, according to the Stanford Cable TV News Analyzer — all unmoved by fact checks repeatedly debunking the nonsense.
Grid traced the 87,000-agents lie to Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, which in May 2021 took a Treasury Department proposal to add 86,852 positions at the IRS by 2031 (again, a gross figure that didn’t account for attrition) and wrongly concluded: “Biden Plans to Hire 87,000 New IRS Agents.” Sen. Joni Ernst (Iowa) repeated the misrepresentation, and Republicans were off to the races.
Instead, they could have told the truth: that the administration plans to add a few thousand IRS agents over 10 years, and a few hundred armed officers, to go after super-rich tax cheats. But the lie is so much scarier.
A young, newly enlisted woman writes to her mother from Day One of IRS Armed Auditors Army boot camp
quote
My Dearest Mother,
We are training, but there is no sign yet of my AR-15. Instead, we watched a long PowerPoint about keeping people’s data private and how to use the computer system. It was very frustrating because it contained over 85 slides, and each slide I thought to myself, “This will be the one with the AR-15 and glorious battle plan,” and then it was just about how to remove staples and then add them back later, and this happened 85 times.
I asked when we would get to torment the middle class with audits, but Gregory Dunbar (who will sit next to me) said that there is nothing in our mission about that and actually having discretion to audit people who don’t report above $400,000 in income is good because otherwise tax cheats would just all report $399,999, which had not occurred to me.
All the computers here are very old and there are big piles of paper everywhere. . . .
90,ooo IRS agents are going to get frustrated and bored with a few hundred millionaires VERY QUICKLY then move on to the REAL target. The juicy FAT middle class. THAT'S where the money is at. The lawyers of rich people QUICKLY discourage tax collections and the poor are to angry and combative,..... BUT the soft and meek, law abiding, programmers of the middle class are are ripe for the harvest.
As it stands today, there are about 70,000 employees of the IRS, counting all the different job categories within the IRS. Not 70,000 "agents".
I'm not an expert about the IRS, or about federal legislation of this kind, or really, of any kind. But with that caveat, I can say that I have read through the actual legislation.
I don't see anything in the wording of this legislation that makes me think it can support any radical or "game changing" enlargement of the IRS, either in its number of employees, or in the way that it operates.
It looks to me like the legislation is very much in line with what WaPo columnist Dana Milbank said about it, just a few days ago. Which you can find right here: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/...ML/000317-3.html#p83
Behold the actual text of the IRS part of the newly enacted Inflation Reduction Act.
CLICK FOR FULL SIZE
CLICK FOR FULL SIZE
"Behold the genuine Inflation Reduction Act, and accept no false cartoon-memes, partisan sound bites (bytes) or other imitations and counterfeits of the kind that are on prominent display in this thread." https://www.congress.gov/11...LLS-117hr5376enr.xml
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 08-29-2022).]
As it stands today, there are about 70,000 employees of the IRS, counting all the different job categories within the IRS. Not 70,000 "agents".
There's a concept in research called... "First Principles," that I've been taught in my current position. This concept of first principles, along with other research ideas, is to always question why things are the way they are, and try to approach everything from the beginning. What that means is... just because someone says, this is how it's always been, does not mean to suggest that it needs to always be that way unless there's a clear guiding principle for that reasoning.
So when we look at the IRS... you're telling me they have 70k employees right now (I believe you). And now we've passed a law to MORE THAN DOUBLE the number of employees at the IRS. That means that in a couple of years, the IRS will have over 150k employees... which is almost as many people as the entire population of Fort Lauderdale. Many of these people will have clearances, and will all have access to very privileged information throughout the country. In order to hire that many people, it will mean that the General Services Administration will need to hire significantly more people just to perform the background checks on them, before they can even get hired... and many more people will need to be hired to support that, and it grows exponentially to the point where you'll effectively have to hire at least 10k more people just to be able to hire 81k people.
This is totally absurd. Understand, I'm not criticizing you here, you know that ... but just want to make it clear. I'm trashing the whole idea that we need 81k more IRS employees.
First principles would tell me... what do the 70k IRS employees that we have now, actually do?
Next I would ask, how many people use the current 1040EZ? Is there a way that we can streamline this? How much of this could be automated?
Before we hire 81k more employees to do the same thing we've always done, how can we instead improve the things we've been doing, with the 70k employees we have now?
The 90,000 tax collection system will FINALLY get the money the liberals have been promising to take back, it is coming from the wealth saturated middle class.
Provide the quotes of people saying "the rich are OVER TAXED".
quote
HOW DID ALL THOSE RICH GUYS GET ALL THOSE BILLIONS
?
Working harder than you. Smarter than you and more effectively than you. More sober than you and more articulate than you. More efficient than you and more inclusive than you. More kindness than you and more common sense than you.
Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: So when we look at the IRS... you're telling me they have 70k employees right now (I believe you). And now we've passed a law to MORE THAN DOUBLE the number of employees at the IRS. That means that in a couple of years, the IRS will have over 150k employees... which is almost as many people as the entire population of Fort Lauderdale.
I don't believe that there is any reality whatsoever in these words from "82-T/A" (whether he was "At Work" or not) and I've read various media reports about it. I've looked at the text of the legislation with my own eyes. I've argued against this thinking in every one of the posts that I have posted in this thread, including the post that I posted that started this thread. (Imagine a box of "Post Posties".)
I started that by quoting from an article in the Washington Post:
quote
The IRS certainly isn’t adding 87,000 armed agents. It isn’t even adding 87,000 agents. In fact, it’s not even adding 87,000 employees.
When you figure in attrition (current funding doesn’t let the IRS fill all vacancies), Treasury officials tell me, the expected increase in personnel would be more like 40,000, over the course of a decade—which would merely restore IRS staffing [by the year 2031] to around the 117,000 it had in 1990.
Only about 6,500 of the new hires would be “agents.” The rest would be customer-service representatives, data specialists and the like. And fewer than 1 percent of the new hires would be armed . . .
I doubt that the people who are posting the "new, Democrat-funded army of 80,000 (more) IRS agents" cartoons and memes even believe that, themselves.
For them, it's just an "attitude" thing.
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 08-29-2022).]
I don't believe that there is any reality whatsoever in these words from "82-T/A" (whether he was "At Work" or not) and I've read various media reports about it. I've looked at the text of the legislation with my own eyes. I've argued against this thinking in every one of the posts that I have posted in this thread, including the post that I posted that started this thread. (Imagine a box of "Post Posties".)
I doubt that the people who are posting the "new, Democrat-funded army of 80,000 (more) IRS agents" cartoons and memes even believe that, themselves.
For them, it's just an "attitude" thing.
What is it exactly that you believe you're correcting me on? I am using the term employees... not agents. You were using the term agents. I know not all 81k employees would be special agents. Re-read what I said.
Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: What is it exactly that you believe you're correcting me on? I am using the term employees... not agents. You were using the term agents. I know not all 81k employees would be special agents. Re-read what I said.
Yes. Let's reread what "82" said. Here's the part of what he said that I singled out in my criticism of what he said:
quote
Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: So when we look at the IRS... you're telling me they have 70k employees right now (I believe you). And now we've passed a law to MORE THAN DOUBLE the number of employees at the IRS. That means that in a couple of years, the IRS will have over 150k employees... which is almost as many people as the entire population of Fort Lauderdale.
The Inflation Reduction Act (whatever anyone thinks about the way it has been named) includes one section about the IRS. It's relatively brief, in terms of words, compared to the entire legislation. I've read through this section.
There are no numbers in the legislation for how many new IRS employees are going to be hired out of this funding, and no numbers for how many IRS employees there will be at any particular time ahead.
The legislation says that the IRS will have the discretion to use this non-recurring funding—it's like a gift card for the IRS that's been set to a limit of "X" billion dollars—to hire more employees, from now until year 2031.
The only way that this funding could be used to double the number of IRS employees in a couple of years is if they blew through it all in just the next two years—instead of proportioning it out over the next 10 years. And even then, many current IRS employees are certain to retire (or be forcibly retired!) in the years that are closest ahead. The IRS has become a "retirement ready" work force because it has not been funded to hire enough younger people to fill the pipeline behind the workers that are aging out and nearing retirement.
There's no remotely realistic scenario in which the number of IRS employees doubles over what it is now in just the next couple of years, or even the next 10 years—and the people that say this are named and identified in the various posts that I have posted throughout this thread, starting with the very first post on the very first page of this thread.
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 08-29-2022).]
The Inflation Reduction Act (whatever anyone thinks about the way it has been named) includes one section about the IRS. It's relatively brief, in terms of words, compared to the entire legislation. I've read through this section.
There are no numbers in the legislation for how many new IRS employees are going to be hired out of this funding, and no numbers for how many IRS employees there will be at any particular time ahead.
The legislation says that the IRS will have the discretion to use this non-recurring funding—it's like a gift card for the IRS that's been set to a limit of "X" billion dollars—to hire more employees, from now until year 2031.
The only way that this funding could be used to double the number of IRS employees in a couple of years is if they blew through it all in just the next two years—instead of proportioning it out over the next 10 years. And even then, many current IRS employees are certain to retire (or be forcibly retired!) in the years that are closest ahead. The IRS has become a "retirement ready" work force because it has not been funded to hire enough younger people to fill the pipeline behind the workers that are aging out and nearing retirement.
There's no remotely realistic scenario in which the number of IRS employees doubles over what it is now in just the next couple of years, or even the next 10 years—and the people that say this are named and identified in the various posts that I have posted throughout this thread, starting with the very first post on the very first page of this thread.
They show their intent to hire "86,852" employees (referred to as FTEs / Full-Time-Employees) by 2031.
If we're being completely honest, I seriously doubt the IRS will have a 100% attrition rate in the next 9 years.
The attrition rate across all office / corporate can be as high as 20%. It's QUITE a bit less for the Federal government... about 6.1% following the pandemic. Everyone loves the Federal TSP and FERS retirement program... and you have to work for the Government for at least 5 years to become vested... so chances are slim that this will increase. Realistically, it'll only go down. But remember, that was after the pandemic when everyone was quitting... but I won't even use the pre-pandemic attrition rate. We'll just use 6% in your favor to keep the math simple.
At the beginning of 2022, the IRS was in a mad-rush to hire 10k people (not part of the bill that just passed)
The IRS currently has 93k employees as of 2022, and they already had funding to hire another 10k employees. So if we're being super conservative here, we could say the IRS probably has 100k employees to keep the math simple.
Before we account for attrition, we need to account for number of hires every year... if we look at the IRS year over year, we can see that they were in constant decline from 2012 through 2019... but starting in 2019, their budget increased, as did their number of employees. This seems to be Trump's fault, but I'm not one to throw out facts I don't like. Trump increased spending towards the IRS from 2019 through 2020 under whatever liberal spending budget Pelosi and Schumer passed to him, while the Republican-controlled congress previously continued to decline that funding from the time they took the house in 2012.
Here's where we have to speculate, because we cannot predict the future for the next ~8 years. Assuming we are a GO, and in 2024 the next president doesn't attempt to stop this, we wouldn't actually see any attrition that would overwhelm the hiring. We would simply determine a loss of 6% against the gain of 10% (which assumes the IRS is able to hire these employees year over year). So we will see a gain of 4% every year for the next 8-9 years. I'm REALLY, REALLY, REALLY swaying these numbers in your favor... so I'll only use 8 years, and the inflated attrition rate, and the reduced hiring rate, and the greatly minimized "hired" rate.
So using all these numbers that greatly favor you... we'd have (starting at 100k employees for the end of 2022):
Year 2023 - 104,000 Year 2024 - 108,160 Year 2025 - 112,486 Year 2026 - 116,986 Year 2027 - 121,665 Year 2028 - 126,532 Year 2029 - 131,593 Year 2030 - 136,857
Remember, this is me being extremely... extremely conservative in my numbers, and heavily swaying in YOUR favor... doesn't even address up through 2032, which would effectively come out to 146k, still using your super-conservative numbers that were in your favor. My numbers were almost spot on, for not having done the math. I hope you realize how much my numbers favor you... if we were to literally take this at face value and say the IRS has 93k employees now, and intended to hire another 86k, that would mean they'd end up with effectively 180k employees by 2032. I'm heavily, heavily factoring in everything I can think of that would downplay these numbers, for your benefit.
Anyway, thank you for making me do the math. I realize I probably wasted my time, but all the facts are in there... so you can read this at your own pace and digest those numbers as you see fit.
[This message has been edited by 82-T/A [At Work] (edited 08-30-2022).]
In all, the IRS might net roughly 20,000 to 30,000 more employees from the new [Inflation Reduction Act] funding, enough to restore the tax-collecting agency’s staff to where it was roughly a decade ago.
That is from my very first post, on page one of this thread.
"82" just said that the IRS currently has 93,000 employees. (That squares with what I've read.) So, if the IRS were to net an additional 30,000 employees, coming to 123,000 employees total, by using the funding in the Inflation Reduction Act—what year are we talking about?
That would be in 2027 or 2028—five or six years from now. (According to what "82" just worked out.)
This "crystal ball" reveals an IRS that is about 30 percent larger than it is now, in terms of staffing, by 2027 or 2028.
How does that square with some of the memes that have cropped up here—like this one?
I think the mathematical modeling work that "82" has undertaken is impressive, but I don't think it takes into account how much disrepair the IRS has suffered, in terms of staffing limitations. and in terms of its Information Technology, which includes some of the oldest and most obsolete IT systems on the planet.
I do think this work deserves to have an expressive name:
Pennock's 82/TA Projection of IRS Staffing Levels
One of the articles that "82" cites is especially worthy of review. It fleshes out the long, single sentence that I used to start this forum post.
"IRS rushes to hire 10,000 workers, but giant backlog expected to persist through 2022" Jacob Bogage and Lisa Rein for the Washington Post; March 3, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost....-tax-backlog-hiring/
I think back to what I posted at the very start of this thread. The very first post, on page one of this thread:
quote
More than half of the agency’s current employees are eligible for retirement and are expected to leave the agency within the next five years. “There’s a big wave of attrition that’s coming and a lot of these resources are just about filling those positions,” says [Natasha] Sarin, an economist who has studied tax avoidance extensively and who was tapped by the Biden administration to beef up the IRS’s auditing power.
I don't think that this many expected near-term retirements of IRS workers are accurately reflected in the "82" model.
What I get from that statement that I just duplicated, from Treasury Department consultant Natasha Sarin, is that there will be close to 50,000 retirements of current IRS employees during the next five years.
If I understand the "82" model, and the way he is using an annual attrition rate of 6%, that is only about 30,000 retirements of IRS employees during the next five years, in his model. So I think he is overestimating the projected size of the IRS, five years from now, by about 20,000 workers.
I don't think it's realistic to continue to argue this back and forth, because there are so many unknowns.
Will[ the IRS actually be able to hire all the new employees that it wants? That Washington Post article that I just cited here (also cited by "82") describes what the IRS has to contend with, in terms of competing with the private sector for hires.
It would be interesting to revisit this thread a year from now, to get a "read" on where the IRS plus-up stands, in terms of staffing. Will it be tracking with the "82" model? Could there even be fewer IRS employees, a year from now, given that assessment from Natasha Sarin on the number of near-term retirements to be expected?
I'll put it on my calendar.
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 08-31-2022).]
That is from my very first post, on page one of this thread.
"82" just said that the IRS currently has 93,000 employees. (That squares with what I've read.) So, if the IRS were to net an additional 30,000 employees, coming to 123,000 employees total, by using the funding in the Inflation Reduction Act—what year are we talking about?
Hi Rinse, I just want to make sure we're clear. A lot of what you are reporting, is news articles... mostly opinion pieces. The vast majority of my links are directly from the Federal government websites.
For example, the one that states they have 93k employees came directly from the Office of Personnel Management. Respectfully, there's nothing to square, as it's stated fact from OPM.
On the 30k employees you say they intend to hire. You're not citing your source, but it's coming from a news organization. I am very less likely going to take seriously an opinion article that attempts to downplay these statistics, and instead think you should look directly at the IRS's own estimations.
They specifically state their intent to hire "86,852" employees (referred to as FTEs / Full-Time-Employees) by 2031.
This is what you need to look at, not misaligned opinion pieces... you have to go by directly what the IRS is directly stating. And, as I linked, they are directly stating an intent to hire 87k new employees.
quote
Originally posted by rinselberg:
I think the mathematical modeling work that "82" has undertaken is impressive, but I don't think it takes into account how much disrepair the IRS has suffered, in terms of staffing limitations. and in terms of its Information Technology, which includes some of the oldest and most obsolete IT systems on the planet.
What I get from that statement that I just duplicated, from Treasury Department consultant Natasha Sarin, is that there will be close to 50,000 retirements of current IRS employees during the next five years.
If I understand the "82" model, and the way he is using an annual attrition rate of 6%, that is only about 30,000 retirements of IRS employees during the next five years, in his model. So I think he is overestimating the projected size of the IRS, five years from now, by about 20,000 workers.
Again, there is intent, and actuality. We are primarily discussing the intent here... because the INTENT to hire 87k new employees, means that the IRS intends to build a 150k+ strong workforce of tax collectors employees. This is the concern and frustrating that we have... WHY do they need so many people, and what will this mean for the rest of us.
For actuality... we can only speculate. And there's math for that too. You'd have to look at prior employment and attrition models, and make a determination based on that. With respect to the Federal government, it really does not take a lot of time to build out infrastructure and "power, space, and cooling." That can all be achieved in about a year, realistically. The government's slum lord is called COPT... as well as a few others. These are contract organizations that procure, build out, and outfit Federal buildings. You may not know this, but most Federal buildings are leased... that is, the government doesn't own the land, they simply sign a contract to become a tenant. It's lucrative for the contractor, and beneficial to the government because they can effectively outsource most of these requirements at "private sector speed" while only having to deal with minimal Federal bureaucracy. So don't let this become a limiting factor in your thought process. With the funding now apportioned, this will be done in a year, and they can rapidly fill these spaces. All the technology contracts already exist between the IRS and the technology suppliers to build out all this stuff quickly.
quote
Originally posted by rinselberg: I don't think it's realistic to continue to argue this back and forth, because there are so many unknowns.
Not really... we understand intent. You're betting the government will fail. You're probably more right than I am. I'm betting the government will succeed. I have no doubt on the success of the government to acquire more power, quickly. It's the one thing the government succeeds in.
Originally posted by rinselberg: The "Inflation Reduction Act", only the name that was given to the legislation. I'm not wanting to get into any discussion about that.
Of course you don't ! That would require you to admit your tribe (news intelligence sources, and politicians) are lying sacks of feces. During his signing ceremony, Brandon never mentioned inflation reduction. He proclaimed from the roof tops that the Bill was the most progressive Global Warming legislation ever passed.
You would also have to admit the head of Home Land Security, Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas is a Cuban-American government official and attorney who has been serving as the seventh United States Secretary of Homeland Security since February 2, 2021. During the Obama administration, he also served in the Department of Homeland Security, first as director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, and then as deputy secretary of DHS.Click to show is a lying sack of feces for continuing to claim the border is closed, even contradicted by Border and Custom's Control.
Your White House mouth piece, Karine Jean-Pierre, also a lying sack of feces, says illegal aliens are not just walking across the border, many trafficking drugs.
Yet you believe what your tribe says that it will not be 87,000 new agents, ?
quote
Originally posted by rinselberg: The IRS funding that is in the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law on Friday,
Wrong ! It was a Tuesday. Brandon flew into Washington DC to sign into law the new, slightly weaker, New Green Deal, in between his vacation from NC, to another vacation in Delaware, the same day.
How can we have any trust in your opinions when you are always fact ignorant ?
quote
Originally posted by rinselberg: This article is in line with previous articles that I've scrutinized, from sources that I think are more credible than not.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by rinselberg: I have an article. What do others have? Memes?
An article ? Wow, how quaint. A meme says one thousand words. Some articles say one thousand lies.
quote
Originally posted by rinselberg: I wont' be gaslit by memes.
The easiest money is the middle class. THAT is what Brandon is going after. All those poor suckeres who hide behind tax writoffs are in for a rude awakening
So, the IRS exposes the confidential information of more than 180,000 individuals with certain types of business income and retirement plans. Then said oops, it was human error.
I'm sure this "accident" and we will see more in the press in the coming months of so called 'shortcomings' of the IRS so they can justify their use for more than 87,000 new IRS employees.
Mark my word, these type of articles will come out like clockwork, probably every week for the next three months.
?
Then said oops, it was human error. 
