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If the goal of the government shutdown was to help taxpayers by curbing government spending and boosting the economy, supporters of the idea got it all wrong.
As the dust settles, economists are adding up the collateral damage. The results arent pretty:
The Internal Revenue Service said Tuesday it will delay the start of next year's filing season by up to two weeks to give programmers time to finish updating the agency's computers. The 16-day shutdown, which ended last week, came at a critical time as the agency was working to update more than 50 systems used to process returns, the IRS said in a statement.
The filing season had been set to start Jan. 21. Acting IRS head Danny Werfel said the agency is working to shorten the delay and will announce the exact start date in December. The delay will affect early filers, many of whom rush their returns to the IRS so they can get refunds quickly.
The April 15 deadline for filing individual tax returns, which is set by law, remains unchanged. "Readying our systems to handle the tax season is an intricate, detailed process, and we must take the time to get it right," Werfel said. "The adjustment to the start of the filing season provides us the necessary time to program, test and validate our systems so that we can provide a smooth filing and refund process for the nation's taxpayers."
This is the second year in a row the agency will have to push back the date when it starts processing tax returns. This year, the agency delayed filing season until Jan. 30 for most filers because Congress made last-minute changes to the tax law. Federal income tax refunds averaged more than $2,800 this year. The IRS issued more than $228 billion in refunds this year. Most of that money was issued before March 1.
Shutdown causes IRS to delay tax filing season | CNS News
The amended complaint includes an additional claim for an alleged violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, as well as new evidence that reveals a politically motivated attack on conservative groups by the IRS as early as August, 2010 when President Barack Obama allegedly began directing comments at his political opponents. The intimidation campaign conducted by the IRS is much more politically-motivated and coordinated than previously thought. ACLJ chief counsel Jay Sekulow stated in a press release on Monday. Besides Shulman, Chief Counsel William Wilkins and former and current officials in the Tax Exempt/Government Entities Division were added to the complaint, including former Commissioner Sarah Hall Ingram, and current Commissioner Joseph Grant.
Michael Seto, acting manager, Exempt Organization Technical Unit; and Nikole Flax and Judith E. Kindell, senior technical advisors in the IRS Exempt Organization Division, were also named as co-defendants. According to the complaint, President Obama joined what the IRS and Democrat members of Congress had already started: a relentless campaign to stifle the free speech of those protesting his and Democrats policies and the direction of the federal government.
The original lawsuit was filed in May 2013. This is the second time the ACLJ has amended it, previously adding 16 organizations in June 2013, bringing to 41 the total number of conservative non-profit groups represented by the ACLJ against the IRS. The Obama Administration and the IRS objected to the conservative message of our clients, which resulted in the unlawful and unconstitutional scheme to keep our clients on the sidelines out of the political debate. This filing strengthens our case and underscores our commitment to holding those responsible for this scheme accountable. Sekulow said.
ACLJ Senior Counsel David French told CNSNews.com that the IRS has even been asking about the activities of family members of his non-profit plaintiffs. The IRS asked for identities not just of the directors and officers of these organizations, but activities even of their family members, trying to find out if they had indirect communication with people who hold elected office. We also have the emails from Lois Lerner indicating that she sought the urgency with which they attached to the Tea Party issue, even forwarding around internally articles about the Tea Partys threat to the Democratic majority in the Senate, so theres abundant circumstantial evidence and abundant direct evidence that there were political concerns [that] were foremost in the IRS [officials'] minds at this point. Lerner, who was placed on administrative leave in May after the IRS scandal broke, resigned last month.
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