Taxpayer advocate: The problem with the IRS is it needs more funding

And this is the person who's supposed to work for the taxpayer?

The problem with the Internal Revenue Service is that it needs more money, said one taxpayer advocate to Congress on Wednesday.

Nina Olson, who works on behalf of taxpayers who have problems with the IRS, said Congress ought to stop trimming back the agency’s budget, CNN Money reported. In a mid-year report, she said that the agency wore many hats: It was responsible for collecting more than 90 percent of revenues for the federal government, it had to keep track of and administer business tax incentives and credits, and it had to oversee numerous government policies on health care, housing, retirement and education. On top of that, the agency will now have to help implement the massive Obamacare, she said.

Meanwhile, the IRS has already lost 8 percent of its budget – a $1 billion since 2010. And it has seen its full-time staff reduced from 86,000 to 79,000, she said, CNN Money reported.

As a result, Olson said, CNN reported, the IRS has a backlog and is hard-pressed to fully investigate its identity theft complaints.

“If the IRS is not properly funded to collect the revenue, there will be fewer dollars available for the military, for social programs, for intelligence and embassy protection, for infrastructure maintenance, for medical research – or simply for deficit reduction,” she said, in related remarks to a Senate subcommittee a few weeks ago, CNN Money reported. And on Wednesday, she reiterated the view.

“In my view,” she said, CNN Money reported, “the real crisis is not the one generating headlines. The real crisis … is a radically transformed mission coupled with inadequate funding to accomplish that mission.”