Trouble Reaching the IRS? Blame Obamacare

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told a House Appropriations Committee panel yesterday that the IRS couldn’t properly fund taxpayer services because it needed money Congress had allocated for that purpose to instead fund its newly mandated Obamacare workload. Rudy Takala noted in The Washington Examiner that:

More than eight million phone calls to the agency’s customer service line went unanswered in the last filing season. Koskinen added that the agency hasn’t fully funded customer service for the last “three or four years,” and that about $900 million had been pulled from cybersecurity.

The agency has been hit with at least two successful cyberattacks in the past year. A cyberattack last year resulted in the theft of data on 330,000 taxpayers from the agency’s “Get Transcript” database, while an attack last week resulted in the loss of special personal identification numbers associated with 101,000.

President Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal 2017 would increase funding for the IRS from $10.9 billion in 2016 to $12.2 billion in 2017, an increase of about 12 percent.

If you’re unfamiliar with Koskinen, see why House GOP members want to impeach him in the video below:

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E.J. Smith is the Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH, where he completed course-work in Practical and Defensive Handgun, Conceal Carry Pistol, Shotguns, Precision Scope Rifle and Kidnapping Prevention. E.J. plays a Yamaha Recording Custom drum set with Zilldjian cymbals. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com. Sign up here to receive all the best content from Richardcyoung.com each week.