IRS chief: Blame rotten customer service and data hacks on Obamacare

Washinton Examiner ^

[TigerClaws]

Both cybersecurity and customer service at the Internal Revenue Service have suffered because of Obamacare, the agency's head said in remarks to Congress on Thursday.

"Congress, as I noted in my testimony, has underfunded … the Affordable Care Act," IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told a panel of the House Appropriations Committee. "That does not remove the statutory mandate we have that we have to implement the act."

Koskinen delivered his remarks in response to a question from Chairman Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., who pointed out that Congress had "increased funding specifically for taxpayer services" in 2014 and 2016.

[Buckeye McFrog]

We need to ban the term “underfunded” from the English language.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Oh, whatever shall we do?

[RicocheT]

Yes, Obamacare added more duties to the IRS, but any business or government agency that has data storage, sensitive data and data connected to money transfers is negligent if it fails to properly secure that data.

You can’t look at the overall budget needs and pull money from cybersecurity if that means lessening security fixes and updates. His testimony indicates the IRS did just that.

[Original Lurker]

Government workers = lazy bums.

[driftdiver]

“You can’t look at the overall budget needs and pull money from cybersecurity if that means lessening security fixes and updates. His testimony indicates the IRS did just that.”

They all do that. I own a small IT security company. Business won’t spend money on security because its the “right” thing to do. They won’t do it to protect Grandmas money or healthcare. They will only do it if the government forces them or the penalty for a breach is incredibly severe. Even then many of them will gamble that the breach won’t happen on their watch.

Been there done that.

We’ve also done business with the government. With a few exceptions they are worse. I’ve seen them eliminate all security funding on contracts.

There is a reason most of us have had our data stolen multiple times.

[Billthedrill]

The IRS got hacked because they don’t have enough money. Right.

[RicocheT]

Thanks driftdiver for the inside truth. I guess all of us that have any sensitive data that ends up in government, financial and health related databases are cooked, screwed and blued.

I’m not ready to go back to stone age living, so I just have to examine all of my bank and other account statements for monkey business every time these come in. Maybe paperless account statements are a dangerous choice.

[Pollster1]

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told a panel of the House Appropriations Committee. "That does not remove the statutory mandate we have that we have to implement the act."

The idea that anyone would use the IRS to implement a good medical care system is ludicrous. Obamacare was meant to be punitive and destructive, so they gave it to the best people for the job - the IRS.

[Terry L Smith]

Mebbe dah IRS wud haf dah stinkin’ muny if d’ey din’t spen’ all d’at on d’ose guns ‘n’ bullets d’at d’ey dun bawt to haf to shoot us w’id!