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Monday, March 22, 2021

How to Talk to a Real Human at the IRS Without Waiting on Hold Forever

 


Scoring the $1.9 Trillion Stimulus Plan and Earlier Covid Relief Programs

How to do a better job of getting relief to those who need it.


Organised crime case studies

 

How to Talk to a Real Human at the IRS Without Waiting on Hold Forever


Lifehacker – “Not all questions can be answered by a computer, especially when it comes to your taxes. But when you call the IRS, it can seem impossible to get an actual human to take your call. That’s been made worse in 2021, as the pandemic has further depleted the notoriously understaffed agency, which is also dealing with a glut of inquiries at the end of an unusually complicated tax year. Even so, sometimes you just need to talk to a person. Here’s how you can reach someone quickly. Expect to wait The IRS received more than 100 million calls last year, but only 1 in 4 callers ultimately got through to an IRS employee, according to a recent National Taxpayer Advocate report. Most callers either get frustrated with the long waits or fed up with the complicated phone tree that only leads from one automated message to another, so they simply hang up. If you do stick it out, the IRS says that you can expect an average wait of 27 minutes when calling calling between May and December, with the longest waits typically on Mondays and Tuesdays. However, many on social media are claiming calls are still taking up to 2-3 hours, if not longer. In 2017, a large enQ, Inc. study found that the best times of day to call were before 9 a.m. on the East Coast and after 5 p.m. on the West Coast…The IRS telephone number is 1-800-829-1040, and they are available from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. local time, Monday thru Friday. Accountant Amy Northard offers this cheat-sheet for navigating the IRS phone menu on her blog…”


Why is my tax refund taking so long? The IRS may not tell you, but this report offers clues

A report to Congress from the Taxpayer Advocate Service underscores what many Americans know all too well: Refund delays are a huge problem.


IRS partially shields some stimulus payments from debt reductions Politico



Corporate Tax Breaks and Executive Compensation, Eric Ohrn, Department of Economics, Grinnell College, February, 2021 – “I analyze the effect of two corporate tax breaks, bonus depreciation and the Domestic Production Activities Deduction (DPAD), on executive compensation in publicly traded US firms. I find both tax breaks significantly increase executive compensation. For every dollar a firm benefits from the tax breaks, compensation of the firm’s top five highest paid executives in-creases by 15 to 19 cents. These effects are much larger than the effect of corporate tax cutson average wages, suggesting the tax breaks increase within-firm income inequality. The tax breaks increase compensation exclusively in firms with weaker governance structures.”


Millionaires and Corporate Giants Escape IRS Audits Again in FY 2020


Tax Havens: Normalized Grand Theft

For this dive into new forms of financial delinquency, investigative journalist Anuška Delić discussed with investigative artists from the Demystification Committee and the collective RYBN.ORG


 

Judges Break Up Door-Making ConglomerateMatt Stoller

 

In the Netherlands, Workers Are Taking on Fossil Fuel Giants Like Shell Jacobin


Tenure’s Broken Promise Chronicle of Higher Education

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