Report: Bush Request for IRS not Enough

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's 2005 budget request for the Internal Revenue Service would seriously shortchange the agency's tax collection activities, leaving a half-million delinquent tax accounts uncollected, 15 million service calls unanswered and nearly 46,000 audits unscheduled, according to the president's own IRS oversight board, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

A strongly worded special report, to be released Tuesday, says Bush's $10.7 billion budget for the IRS falls at least $230 million short of the agency's immediate needs and fails to match the administration's tough talk on tax law enforcement. The president requested a 4.6 percent boost to the IRS's budget, but the board says much of that will be swallowed by pay increases and other costs unconnected to tax collection.

The oversight board -- which includes seven presidential appointees as well as the Internal Revenue commissioner and Treasury secretary -- implores Congress to boost Bush's request by $530 million. That investment would yield $5 billion each year in taxes that otherwise would go uncollected, the board said.

"Unfortunately, (the president's) budget not only threatens to end the clear progress made in customer service, it also does little to shrink our nation's tax compliance gap," the report states. "It does not back up its goals on enforcement with the necessary resources to do the job."

-- NYSCPA.org News Staff

Posted on 3/30/04