John Oliver tackled the issue of the Internal Revenue Service during Sunday night’s “Last Week Tonight” and appealed to Americans to give the agency a chance because the work is “unbelievably boring.”
“Blaming the IRS because you hate paying your taxes is a bit like slapping your checkout clerk because the price of eggs has gone up,” Oliver said. “The IRS does a difficult, thankless, almost dangerously boring job.”
Oliver then pointed out that because of cuts to the IRS budget, the agency lost nearly 20 percent of its operations. He also noted that “most IRS employees are over 50 and less than 1 percent are under 25.”
“That does not bode well for the IRS,” Oliver said, “because a government agency should not have the same age ratio as an Eric Clapton concert.”
Oliver also addressed the fact that the IRS uses a tax storage system that was developed in the 1960s.
“That is terrifying!” Oliver said. “We should at least be using technology invented after an era when it was okay to call a female coworker ‘toots.'”
Oliver maintained that Americans should give the IRS a chance.
“Think of our government as a body,” Oliver said. “The IRS is the anus. It’s nobody’s favorite part but you need that thing working properly or everything goes to shit real quick.”
The show closed with a stirring performance by Michael Bolton paying tribute to the IRS in song.
Watch the video below, courtesy of “Last Week Tonight.”
I read elsewhere that if you have a problem with taxes…don’t blame the IRS, blame Congress.
Or the voters. Take your pick.
Edit: Or the democratic voters that can’t get off their asses to vote in the midterms.
I watched it. It was funny. John is absolutely correct, the IRS does what congress tells them to. Congress blaming the IRS for the burdensome issues with taxes is like blaming the oven for over baking the chicken.
Keep in mind, the republicans are only happy when government is broken. When it is working to make our country better or to help individual citizens the republicans are screaming about welfare queens, fraud, waste and abuse. And, believe me, they know all about waste, fraud and abuse!
My brother was an IRS agent for 35 years (R.I.P.)
He got so tired of the hate he just told people he “worked for the Treasury Dept.” which of course was true before the monstrosity of the DHS was created.
He retired early because of the staff cuts, frozen wages, inadequate facilities and equipment, and ridiculous restrictions on their attempts at investigating tax fraud (corporate in his case.)
Boy did he have some stories. I liked the one where he went out to check on an Ethanol plant in Oklahoma that was claiming big tax breaks. When he got there it was closed and no one was around so he started walking around the outside fence of facility taking pictures. Then 4 sheriffs cars screamed up and was arrested for “taking pictures of a building without consent”.
He showed them his badge (and gun) and still got “taken in as a precaution” and they took his camera.
Curiously, they held him for 4 hours and when he finally got out to get back to the plant, It was all running with 20 employees there who all claimed they “always worked there every day.” He never did get his camera back.
The funniest part of this sad story may be how far Michael Bolton has fallen that he’s reduced to doing comedy gigs rather than concert tours. He must need the money as I doubt he’s otherwise this politically conscious.
(Please ignore this if Bolton is indeed a big contributor to liberal causes other than follicle research.)