Executive
Waste of the Day: IRS “Taxpayer Experience Officer” Profits Off Taxpayers
Topline: The IRS has appointed a new “taxpayer experience officer,” whose salary is paid by – who else – taxpayers themselves.
Latest IRS officer with a bloated salary
The agency hasn’t publicly announced Fumi Tamaki’s salary, but her predecessor earned nearly $200,000 in 2022, according to payroll records obtained by OpenTheBooks through an open records request.
Key facts: Current Deputy Chief Taxpayer Experience Officer Courtney Kay-Decker earned $187,000 in 2022. Adding in estimated benefits of 25%, that means the soon-to-be-two-person office costs taxpayers over $483,000 each year.
Takami and Kay-Decker will “pave the way for continuous improvements for … the tax community,” according to IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel – whose position earned $168,000 in the latest available payroll data.
The IRS paid out six-figure salaries to 11,846 people in 2022, with some employees earning up to $261,400.
That resulted in a total payroll of $4.9 billion.
Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.
Background: The Taxpayer Experience Office is tasked with helping manage the $80 billion in supplemental funding the IRS received from the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Republicans fought back and reduced that funding to $58.4 billion this March.
The office also works closely with National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins, who the IRS has dubbed the “Voice of the Taxpayer.” She makes over $203,000.
If they spent that much on taxpayer services…
Collins and the taxpayer experience office are good at identifying issues at the IRS, such as in a recent report to Congress announcing that it takes an average of 22 months for the agency to refund victims of identity theft. It remains to be seen whether they can fix those issues.
Summary: The best way to improve the taxpayer experience would be to slash the IRS’ bloated payroll and save Americans some money.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.
Adam Andrzejewski (say: Angie-eff-ski) is the CEO/founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Before dedicating his life to public service, Adam co-founded HomePages Directories, a $20 million publishing company (1997-2007). His works have been featured on the BBC, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, C-SPAN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, FOX News, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), Forbes, Newsweek, and many other national media.
Today, OpenTheBooks.com is the largest private repository of U.S. public-sector spending. Mission: post "every dime, online, in real time." In 2022, OpenTheBooks.com captured nearly all public expenditures in the country, including nearly all disclosed federal government spending; 50 of 50 state checkbooks; and 25 million public employee salary and pension records from 50,000 public bodies across America.
The group's aggressive transparency and forensic auditing of government spending has led to the assembly of grand juries, indictments, and successful prosecutions; congressional briefings, hearings, and subpoenas; Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits; Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports; federal legislation; and much more.
Our Honorary Chairman - In Memoriam is U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, MD.
Andrzejewski's federal oversight work was included in the President's Budget To Congress FY2021. The budget cited his organization by name, bullet-pointed their findings, and footnoted/hyperlinked to their report.
Posted on YouTube, Andrzejewski's presentation, The Depth of the Swamp, at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar 2020 in Naples, Florida received 3.8 million views.
Andrzejewski has spoken at the Columbia School of Journalism, Harvard Law School and the law schools at Georgetown and George Washington regarding big data journalism. As a senior policy contributor at Forbes, Adam had nearly 20 million pageviews on 206 published investigations. In 2022, investigative fact-finding on Dr. Fauci's finances led to his cancellation at Forbes.
In 2022, Andrzejewski did 473 live television and radio interviews across broadcast, major cable platforms, and radio shows. Andrzejewski is the author of The Waste of the Day column at Real Clear Policy. The column is syndicated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates across USA.
Andrzejewski lives in Hinsdale, Illinois with his wife Kerry and three daughters. He is a lector at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church and has finished the Chicago Marathon eight times (PR 3:58.49 in 2022).
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