来源：《华尔街日报》
原文见报日期：2022年2月14日
We’ve chronicled the Internal Revenue Service’s many problems—from delayed tax refunds to tens of millions of unprocessed tax returns. Hard to fathom the dysfunction could get worse. But last week the National Taxpayer Advocate and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration revealed even more disarray.
我们记录了美国国税局的许多问题——从延迟退税到数千万份未处理的纳税申报单。很难理解这种运转不良可能会变得更糟。但上周，美国纳税人协会和财政部税务管理监察长透露，实际情况更加混乱。
The IRS is begging Congress for more money to improve taxpayer service. Only one in nine taxpayer calls for assistance were answered last tax season, taxpayer advocate Erin Collins reported. The backlog of returns has swelled to 24 million, and Treasury warns that 2022 could be a very “frustrating season.”
美国国税局请求国会提供更多资金，以改善纳税人服务。据纳税人支持官艾琳·柯林斯报道，上个报税季，纳税人求助电话中只有九分之一得到了接听。积压的报税单已增至2400万份，财政部警告称，2022年的报税季可能会非常“令人沮丧”。
Much blame goes to Congress, which ordered the IRS to stand up complicated transfer-payment programs overnight. Ms. Collins told a House Ways and Means Committee oversight panel that the IRS filled fewer than 200 of 5,000 open positions this tax season.
很多人指责国会，因为它在一夜之间命令国税局建立复杂的转移支付项目。柯林斯对众议院筹款委员会的一个监督小组说，在本纳税季的5000个空缺职位中，国税局只填补了不到200个。
The IRS complains it’s struggling to compete for workers with private employers. Okay, but why not raise wages? The agency’s appropriation went up 17% last year. That’s a bigger raise than most Americans received. The agency began the fiscal year with more than $1.4 billion of this money unspent. But no amount of money can fix IRS mismanagement.
美国国税局(IRS)抱怨称，它难以与私营部门雇主竞争员工。好吧，但为什么不提高工资呢？国税局的拨款去年增加了17%。这比大多数美国人得到的加薪要高。国税局在本财政年度开始时有超过14亿美元的资金未使用。但是再多的钱也解决不了国税局管理不善的问题。
“Despite this ongoing significant hiring shortfall, the IRS continues to close Tax Processing Centers,” the Treasury IG for Tax Administration noted in a report last week. The IRS has shifted work to processing centers in Kansas City, Missouri, and Ogden, Utah where it has struggled to hire new workers. The unemployment rate in Ogden is 1.3%.
财政部税务管理局监察长上周在一份报告中指出：“尽管目前存在严重的招聘缺口，国税局仍在继续关闭税务处理中心”。美国国税局已将工作转移到密苏里州堪萨斯城和犹他州奥格登的处理中心，在那里难以雇佣新工人。奥格登的失业率低到只有1.3%。
Many businesses are investing in technologies that improve worker productivity. Not the IRS. The IRS’s mail-processing equipment is “20 years old and has not had any significant technical upgrades in more than 15 years,” the IG reports.
许多企业正在投资于提高工人生产率的技术。但美国国税局不这样做。国税局的邮件处理设备“已经有20年的历史了，在超过15年的时间里没有进行任何重大的技术升级，”监察长报告说。
The IG says it notified IRS management in April 2021 that mail-processing machines needed to be updated or replaced, noting “machines had been serviced almost 300 times” between January and March 2021. The IRS’s response: “An expedited review was unnecessary.”
监察长表示，他们在2021年4月通知国税局管理部门，邮件处理机器需要更新或更换，并指出，在2021年1月至3月期间，“这些机器已经检修了近300次”。国税局的回应是：“没有必要加速审查。”
Such mechanical malfunctions cost the IRS $56.2 million in interest from taxpayer payments last year that were not deposited immediately, the IG reports, adding that “the cost to replace or rebuild the current equipment is only a fraction of those lost costs, ranging from $360,000 to $650,000.”
监察长报告称，国税局去年因未能及时将退税汇入纳税人账户中，导致国税局多支付5620万美元的利息给纳税人。并补充说，更换或重新装配现有设备的成本只是这些利息损失的一小部分，从36万美元到65万美元不等。”
IRS management has little incentive to improve efficiency or service since it can use taxpayer frustrations to demand more money from Congress. Any business as poorly managed as the IRS would have ceased to exist long ago, but there’s rarely accountability in Washington.
国税局管理层几乎没有提高效率或服务的动力，因为他们可以利用纳税人的不满向国会要求更多的资金。任何像国税局这样管理不善的企业早就不存在了，但在华盛顿却很少有人被问责。