来源：《华盛顿邮报》
原文刊登日期：2022年2月21日
The Internal Revenue Service is no longer functioning properly. The agency reported a backlog of about 8 million unprocessed returns at the start of the year; it turns out the actual figure is nearly 24 million. About half of that backlog is paper returns the IRS doesn’t have enough staff to process. The other half is a mix of amended returns, cases flagged for more scrutiny and unopened correspondence.
国税局已不能再正常运作。该机构报告称，年初积压了约800万份未经处理的报税表；事实证明，实际数字接近2400万。大约一半的积压是纸质报税表，国税局没有足够的人员来处理。另一半则是经过修改的报税表、需要进一步审查的报税表和未打开的信件。
There are real people behind every one of these returns. Donna Berry filed an amended return on May 15. It still hasn’t been processed. She calls the IRS multiple times a month, only to be told there’s nothing the agency can do. Ms. Berry has custody of her 6-year-old granddaughter. She was supposed to receive the child tax credit payment starting in July, but she has yet to get a penny because her return is in limbo. Ms. Berry was counting on that money to buy WiFi for her granddaughter’s virtual schooling. Instead, they have muddled through on Ms. Berry’s phone.
每一张报税表背后都有真实的人。唐娜·贝瑞于去年5月15日提交了一份修改后的报税表，但仍然没有被处理。她一个月给国税局打好几次电话，却被告知国税局无能为力。贝瑞拥有她6岁孙女的监护权。她本应从去年7月开始获得儿童税收抵免，但她还没有得到一分钱，因为她的报税表处于不确定状态。贝瑞正指望着用这笔钱购买WiFi好让孙女能够远程上课。相反，国税局的人只是在电话里敷衍了事。
“It’s been a nightmare,” Ms. Berry said. “If I wait an hour on the phone and get to speak to someone, it’s like a great victory.”
“这是一场噩梦，”贝瑞说。“如果我在电话上等了一个小时，然后能和某人说话，这就像是一个巨大的胜利。”
Elizabeth and Will Rodger filed their tax return electronically around March 15. They are waiting for close to a $9,000 refund since they did not receive their stimulus payments. For months, the IRS website said their return was still processing. Then it said it wasn’t found. They have called repeatedly and contacted their congressman, but still, there is no refund and no word from the IRS on what went wrong.
罗杰夫妇在去年3月15日左右通过网络提交了纳税申报单。他们正在等待将近9000美元的退税，因为他们没有收到他们的经济刺激款。几个月来，美国国税局网站显示，他们的报税表仍在处理中。然后又说没找到报税表。他们已经多次打电话并联系了所在选区的国会议员，但仍然没有退税，国税局也没有说明出了什么问题。
“They’re running on COBOL and Band-Aids over there,” said Elizabeth Rodger, referring to the 60-year-old computing technology the IRS still uses.
伊丽莎白·罗杰说：“它们使用的是COBOL语言和程序补丁。”她指的是国税局仍在使用的60年前的计算机技术。
The IRS was once a leader in innovation. Not anymore. The agency’s inability to conduct basic functions is as much a symbol of American decline as collapsing bridges. Congress recently passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill. Why hasn’t there been a similar rush to fix the IRS and devote the necessary resources to rebuild it?
国税局曾经是创新的领导者。现在不再是了。该机构无法履行基本职能，就像桥梁倒塌一样，是美国衰落的象征。国会最近通过了一项两党基础设施法案。为什么没有类似的热潮来修复国税局，并投入必要的资源来重建它？
Much of the blame falls on Republicans, who slashed the IRS budget by about 18 percent in the past decade. The result was a 20 percent decline in staffing. At the same time, the IRS has been asked to do more and more. It had to quickly implement the 2017 GOP tax overhaul. Then it had to issue 160 million stimulus payments multiple times. Last year, Democrats gave the IRS another massive task: Issuing child tax credit payments every month from July to December.
大部分责任当归咎于共和党，他们在过去十年里将国税局的预算削减了约18%。结果是工作人员减少了20%。与此同时，国税局被要求做的越来越多。它不得不迅速实施2017年共和党的税收改革。然后它不得不多次发放1.6笔经济刺激款。去年，民主党人给了国税局另一项艰巨的任务：从7月到12月，每月发放儿童税收抵免款项。
IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig, a Trump administration appointee, has been under fire for being slow to respond to this crisis. He finally created “surge teams” to help with clerical tasks and scrapped a plan to close the Austin processing facility. It won’t be enough.
特朗普政府任命的美国国税局局长查尔斯·P·雷蒂格因对这场危机反应迟缓而受到抨击。他最终成立了“增援小组”来帮助处理文书工作，并取消了关闭奥斯汀处理中心的计划。但这些还不够。
What the IRS really needs is a big investment to staff up and modernize its systems. Congress must treat this with the same degree of urgency as the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.
美国国税局真正需要的是一笔巨大的投资，用于人员配备和系统现代化。国会必须像对待国家摇摇欲坠的基础设施一样，以同样的紧迫感对待这一问题。