Free Republic

The Internal Revenue Service will make tax refunds even if the government remains shut down when they are set to be issued, the Trump administration said on Monday. “Tax refunds will go out,” Russell Vought, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told reporters during a briefing.

The IRS has been bled white, complained Commissioner John Koskinen. Budget cuts to the agency, he adds, have forced the IRS to eliminate almost all overtime, implement hiring freezes, and furlough nonessential operatives. It will also likely mean a reduction in taxpayer services like audits and, yes, even the processing of refund checks. And Koskinen wants the public to know that it’s all the GOP’s fault. “Everybody’s return will get processed,” the IRS commissioner told reporters on Thursday. “But people have gotten very used to being able to file their return and quickly get a refund. This year we...

The IRS is considering its own temporary shutdown due to recent budget cuts enacted by Congress, its chief said Thursday. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said furloughs — forced unpaid days off for employees as part of an IRS closure — is one idea reluctantly being tossed about to save money, though they are hoping they will not have to go there. Story Continued Below . . “There is no way we can say right now that that won’t happen,” Koskinen told reporters at a press conference on the upcoming tax season. “Again, I would stress that would be the last...

The IRS pays out billions in fraudulent tax refunds, and Lansing is at the top of the list. The IRS paid out more than $3 million in refunds to one address in Lansing. The IRS has not disclosed that address, but according to a new report issued by the IRS Inspector General, someone filed more than 2100 separate tax returns using that address, and received $3.3 million in fraudulent refunds. The inspector general says identity thieves filing bogus tax returns got more than $5 billion in refunds last year. The inspector general also says the problem is so rampant., the...