Fire this corrupt lying clown! Yesterday!
Posted on 06/03/2015 5:34:48 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen was in the hot seat on Capitol Hill yesterday over a massive data breach and hacking of highly sensitive taxpayer information, including social security numbers. A number of taxpayers whose information was stolen have also lost their identities.
Information and testimony given by Inspector General Russell George revealed the IRS was given multiple warnings and recommendations about how to prevent an attack or breach. The IRS failed to implement all of the recommendations given. More from Americans For Tax Reform (bolding is mine):
Over the last decade the IRS has failed to implement numerous recommendations that would make taxpayer information more secure. At a Senate Finance Committee hearing today Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) Chief J. Russell George revealed that the IRS failed to implement 44 recommendations that would improve the IRS’s ability to protect taxpayer information from hackers. Of these 44, ten recommendations were from audits over three years old.
If the IRS had implemented these recommendations, taxpayer information would be better protected and last week’s hack may have been prevented. As George said during today’s hearing, “It would have been much more difficult had they (IRS) implemented all of the recommendations that we made.”
Since 2007, the IRS has been warned at least seven times by watchdog groups that it needed to strengthen its protections of taxpayer information.
In a 2014 report, TIGTA warned that if stronger protections are not implemented, “taxpayers could be exposed to the loss of privacy and to financial loss and damages resulting from identity theft or other financial crimes.” The report was the latest in a series of warnings about the agency’s inability to protect taxpayer information.
A 2013 report found that the IRS had failed to fully implement eight recommendations that would increase security over taxpayer data despite telling TIGTA they had been implemented. A 2011 report found that taxpayer data was vulnerable to hackers and stronger security measures were needed and in 2010, TIGTA found that the agency had inadequate safeguards to protect taxpayer information from contract workers.
Instead of modernizing its system to protect taxpayer information from hackers, the IRS wasted taxpayer dollars by purchasing Nerf footballs that were never used, the world’s largest crossword puzzle, $100 lunches, and Thomas the Tank Engine Wristbands.
The IRS also spent millions of tax dollars on the production of a series of Star Trek, Gilligan's Island and dance videos.
As Senator Tim Scott mentions in the interview above, the IRS receives $1 billion each year for IT work.
Meanwhile, despite the breach and likely identity theft of 200,000 taxpayers thanks to the negligence of IRS officials, Americans are still required by law to submit personal information to the tax agency or face penalties, fines and in some cases, prison time.
videos at link ...
Fire this corrupt lying clown! Yesterday!
The mission of the IRS is to intimidate and silence critics of this government. It’s the only thing they’re efficient at.
Seriously? How can he still have a job?
As much as this hack is testifying before Congress, they should put a cot for him in the Congressional coat room...
Now now, it's a little unfair to expect empty suits with no skills apart from blacking out a multiple choice chad, and kissing the boss' ass, to do something about it. Geez. Get off their backs. /s
Because the way it works is, you hire politically compromised people.... they know they are compromised, that was as the administration you can always control them.
Is that a reference to the 1040 form?
Regards,
Back in the ‘90’s,, before the Internet, Cankles simply had boxes full of republican politicians tax files trucked on over to her office. Illegal as hell - but no sweat. They served well for a couple of decades of blackmail. But now, we have younger blood in office, who weren’t in the IRS system back then. ‘Getting harder to blackmail.
Now, they just get ‘hacked up.”
A real hacking breach would normally effect many more than 100,000.
What should be researched is what the common connection is between these 100,000. In sequence or politically in synch?
Are there any honest investigative reporters out there?
(A good and honest reporter out there, with seating inside The Court”, knowing any true reporting against the Rats will be severely punished and silenced, should “go Bacon” and write through a Shakespeare...the better to keep one’s head and live to write another day. When you are the son - illegitimate or no - of the “Virgin” Queen, you are living under a tenuous double edged sword. Prudent to keep one’s head down.) -
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