IRS tax fraud: Agency wastes taxpayer cash on Blackberrys and aircards

The Tax Man Cometh!

Everyone always wants the latest technology, but a government auditor said Tuesday that the IRS wasted millions of dollars on BlackBerrys and wireless modem aircards that employees don’t need or even use.

In 2011 alone the tax service paid $1.1 million for nearly 14,000 aircards and 754 BlackBerrys that weren’t used for at least three straight months, and 45 of those aircards and 68 BlackBerrys were never used the entire year, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration said in a report.

More than 2,500 employees may have gotten their technological gadgets without ever getting a manager’s approval, the auditor said. The IRS agreed has agreed to review employees’ technology use, but rejected the idea of pooling aircards for workers to share. IRS employees have been assigned 35,000 taxpayer-funded aircards and 4,400 BlackBerrys, at a cost of $11.4 million in 2011.

“The processes for assigning and monitoring the use of aircards and BlackBerrys are not effective,” the auditors said. “We found that assignment of these devices is generally based on job series classifications without adequately ensuring a business need exists.”

Under an agreement between the IRS and a labor union, those employees who are eligible for aircards are set out in the rules, based on factors such as business travel and the need to work outside the office.

In its official response, the IRS said it believes that process is working and rejected the auditor’s calls to re-evaluate the situation.

The auditor said that the rules call for BlackBerrys generally to go to senior executives, but said many of them are held by employees outside that description. Of the 5,124 BlackBerrys IRS had in May 2012, auditors said 2,123 — 41 percent — were assigned to employees whose jobs didn’t automatically qualify, and of those, 1,000 employees didn’t get a manager’s approval for an exception to the policy

The IRS is happy that you can pay them so much of your hard earned money, they are so happy in fact they decided to splurge on getting some blackberrys and aircards! You may think, well "so what?"

It would be fine and dandy if they purchased them, and used them. But an audit done on Tuesday concluded that the IRS has wasted millions on blackberrys and wireless modem aircards. They don't actually NEED these items, nor did they ever use them when they had them.

In 2011 the IRS paid a whopping $1.1 million for 14,000 aircards and 754 blackberrys, that sat idle for atleast 3 months, and 45 aircards with 68 blackberrys that never even got used for the entire year of 2011.

The audit claims over 2,500 employees received these fine gifts without manager approval.. So did they just buy whatever they wanted and say "Hey put it on the taxpayer's tab!" ? The IRS now claims it will "review" the technology use by employees, but won't jump on board with the idea of pooling the aircards for workers to share.

So, 2011 gift results: 35,000 taxpayer-funded aircards, and 4,400 blackberrys at a cost of $11.4 million for the entire year.

Normally, these devices are reserved for senior executives, but about 41% of the blackberrys purchased were going to just normal workers, that didn't even require the use of these devices.

Lets take a look at another example of IRS waste.

The IRS planned to launch two new projects, the My IRS Account project and a new release of the Modernized e-File project, in the new portal environment. However, because the New Portal Implementation Project was cancelled, the IRS had to expend $9.7 million for new equipment and upgrades to the existing portal capacity to operate projects dependent on the portals, including the My IRS Account and Modernized e-File projects. In addition to extraneous expenses, purchasing new equipment for portal capacity upgrades prior to development of an enterprise portal business strategy increases the risk that new equipment may not integrate with the new portal environment once it is developed.

Here we have a project the IRS had planned to set up, a modernized e-File project, and a new website. But decided it would be too costly. But they ended up spending $9.7 million dollars to upgrade their existing portal. After it was all said and done, the IRS had invested $19.5 million of taxpayer funds.

This is only 2 examples right off the top that can be looked at, we all know the government wastes a lot of our hard earned money, but after reading the waste on phones and failed projects, it annoys me. I think America needs an opt-out option for this Tax BS, Imagine how much could've been done in the way of fixing bridges, roads.. improving bad neighborhoods, invested in new clean energy technology, the list can go on and on.

I thought I'd bring this story up so ATS can get a glimpse at another example of taxpayer funds being wasted on a whim.



Source

Source2

Multiply this waste by thousands of Government departments and millions of employees (doing what, all day, every day, exactly?) and you have spending in the trillions! It is not easy to blow a trillion, let alone three! Every year!

Another fine example of taxpayers money hard at work...........
[sarcasm......]

Originally posted by snarky412
Another fine example of taxpayers money hard at work...........

[sarcasm......

]

More like our money is hardly* working,

Every report I read, it just makes me We have to find a way to fix this soon, the right people need to step up, and root out the cronies.

Originally posted by sprtpilot
Multiply this waste by thousands of Government departments and millions of employees (doing what, all day, every day, exactly?) and you have spending in the trillions! It is not easy to blow a trillion, let alone three! Every year!

It's unbelievable to say the least, I'm sure everybody that is in charge of spending taxpayer money has a pretty care free attitude towards spending it, that's the sad part.. our "servants" have no shame in the way they spend our money.

Well its good to see their auditors are catching these types of things.

We know waste will happen but as long as its corrected and they don't do it again I think its a positive. Hopefully whoever is in charge realizes their mistake and doesn't do it again.

Originally posted by Hopechest
Well its good to see their auditors are catching these types of things.

We know waste will happen but as long as its corrected and they don't do it again I think its a positive. Hopefully whoever is in charge realizes their mistake and doesn't do it again.

You make a good point, I guess the one good thing we can take from this story is that audits are actually happening.. to what extent and depth is unknown, it could all be for show. There is no telling how much they actually waste that never gets noticed.

If they can actually do serious audits of all of these government entities, and get real results.. I will feel a little better. But if nobody is held accountable for the waste, we can assume they really never cared, and it was all smoke and mirrors. But, I think sharing this news here on ATS, plus the article that it originated is a big win for public information. Hopefully more people will take awareness of these problems, and act accordingly.

We can keep the pressure on them, hopefully they will keep slipping up, and we can expose them fully. Thanks for your input!

As the saying goes, a day late and a dollar short. Guess we lost more than a dollar on this one though.

reply to post by eXia7


Oh, so the agency that is there to collect Steal our money in the form of taxes is corrupt and out of control?

Nah, I can't believe it. The Govt is there to protect us and feed all the starving babies. There is no way that they could be anything but pure as winter snow.


YEAH!!!! I hope we get some MORE Govt agencies, so MORE money is wasted.

Ive worked in government in different capacities for about 20 years now.

No matter what department Im with they're always pushing technology without any plan.

Just buy and install a lot of things that plug in.

Dont explain why, dont train anyone how to use it, just buy a lot of it and plug it in somewhere and never use it.

It's a combination of having to spend money in the budget or you lose it next year and tech ignorant people afraid of becoming irrelevant so they just buy whatever they see.

One of the more egregious examples is public schools buying iPad for their students with no plans on how to use or implement them and most of them ending up stolen, damaged or loaded with porno by years end.

It's not unlike the gun control push. The whole "we have to do something!" nonsense.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


I've found the same as in my dealings with them. I think it stems from the departments being run by people that feel the need to be on top of everything and everyone no matter the cost. Over just doing a job right.

reply to post by eXia7


So the IRS wasted $1 million. Big whoop.

They did use all but 45 of 14,000 aircards, which seems to me to be pretty good planning.

I think this is much ado about nothing.

reply to post by sligtlyskeptical


You are honestly defending the IRS?

Our country is lost.
This report is just what has been found and released to the public.

We as Americans have forgot just how poorly the Govt manages anything, yet more people want them to control more of our life.

What a sad group of people we are becoming.

Originally posted by macman
reply to post by sligtlyskeptical

 

You are honestly defending the IRS?

Our country is lost.
This report is just what has been found and released to the public.

We as Americans have forgot just how poorly the Govt manages anything, yet more people want them to control more of our life.

What a sad group of people we are becoming.

Well there where at least 7 be for that didn't defend the IRS. So don't lose hope on Americans just yet.

...while disallowing legitimate tax deductions during an audit just so they can at least break even on the cost of the audit.

Originally posted by macman
reply to post by eXia7

 

Oh, so the agency that is there to collect Steal our money in the form of taxes is corrupt and out of control?

Nah, I can't believe it. The Govt is there to protect us and feed all the starving babies. There is no way that they could be anything but pure as winter snow.


YEAH!!!! I hope we get some MORE Govt agencies, so MORE money is wasted.

That's the part about the IRS I don't like. They can be hypocrites, spend our money, then come pounding on our doors with federal agents when we owe money.

Originally posted by sligtlyskeptical
reply to post by eXia7

 

So the IRS wasted $1 million. Big whoop.

They did use all but 45 of 14,000 aircards, which seems to me to be pretty good planning.

I think this is much ado about nothing.

No, the IRS has wasted ~$30 million with the addition of the failed project I linked.

reply to post by eXia7


I also like the idea that when they owe you the money back that they stole, it is on their sweet time, with no interest paid.

But, when the citizen owes, they will beat that door down, charge interest and fines with jail time.

Anyone that doesn't see this is asleep at the wheel.

Originally posted by macman
reply to post by eXia7

 

I also like the idea that when they owe you the money back that they stole, it is on their sweet time, with no interest paid.

But, when the citizen owes, they will beat that door down, charge interest and fines with jail time.

Anyone that doesn't see this is asleep at the wheel.

Yeah, I've been complaining about that to people on a daily basis. I need my refund like right now, but they aren't rushing to get it back.

I really hate these people, they are the biggest joke in modern history. I think a group of partially trained monkeys could do better than these morons.