Richard III, the Tudor Myth, and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” ~ Mark Twain

Excellent Article on IRS CI Special Agent and Cryptocurrency 

I post today on an excellent article—Geraldine Brooks, The Cyber Sleuth (WAPO 10/1/24), here. This is one article in a WAPO series on “Who is Government?” where seven writers are said to “go in search of the essential public servant.” The articles in the series with author of each article are:

•  The Canary: Michael Lewis on the Department of Labor
• The Sentinel: Casey Cep on the Department of Veterans Affairs
• The Searchers: Dave Eggers on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab
• The Number: John Lanchester on the Bureau of Labor Statistics
• The Cyber Sleuth: Geraldine Brooks on the Internal Revenue Service
• The Equalizer: Sarah Vowell on the National Archives
• The Rookie: W. Kamau Bell on the Department of Justice

Each article in the series (so far) is outstanding. It is appropriate that Michael Lewis starts with the first installment because of his book, The Fifth Risk, which has been described as “a love letter to federal workers -- and a dig at Trump’s ‘willful ignorance’.” See WAPO book review here. Lewis tells a great story of the bureaucracy—the deep state, if you will—and how much the bureaucrats do for the country, keeping the country on an even keel in turbulent times (particularly the first (and hopefully the only) Trump administration where chaos reigned as Trump haphazardly filled the ranks of political appointees to the agencies).

The Cyber Sleuth installment deals with Jarod Koopman, an IRS “Cyber Sleuth.” Koopman is an example of IRS employees and government employees generally who bring dedication and unique skill to the mission of the IRS, an agency that Congress chronically underfunds seemingly to hamper the IRS’s ability to do the tasks Congress assigned it to do. The article says:

Until last year, the staff who work inside had watched their budget get cut for a decade. Their staffing numbers had reached lows not seen since the 1970s, even as the U.S. population swelled and the quantity of tax returns soared. There was no money to update failing technology, or even the software that ran it. The result was a pileup of paper returns that colonized corridors and cafeterias, and an American public vexed by poor service.

That, of course, was the goal: anti-tax activist Grover Norquist’s famous shrink-it-till-you-can-sink-it strategy. So the civil servants who had been valiantly struggling to serve more people with fewer resources found themselves unappreciated — even despised.

And perhaps most despised are the 3 percent of IRS personnel involved in criminal investigation, who have become piñatas for the agency’s critics. Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade characterized agents such as Koopman as dangerous threats who could “hunt down and kill middle-class taxpayers,” while Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) accused them of “committing armed robbery on Americans.” Republicans even attached a rider to a spending bill limiting the number of bullets the IRS can buy. “A weapon is rarely discharged by one of our agents,” says a frustrated Werfel. “But you can’t send an agent into a criminal enterprise unarmed, so they have to train, and there’s a minimum inventory required for that.” 

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Is a seltzer a beer? The Tax Office is trying to figure it out

Who would have thought LinkedIn, or otherwise known as the place where public servants go to gloat about their security clearance or broadcast their leap into the private sector, would bring the demise of a 24-year-long public service career.

A former Australian Taxation Office employee learned this lesson the hard way after he took the agency to Fair Work over claims he was bullied over a comment on a post which accused the tax zsar of "diddling the government of important revenue" by "allowing rubbish data" into its tax calculations.

The Canberra man, who Public Eye has chosen not to name, had his unfair dismissal application shot down by the workplace watchdog last month.

In a September hearing, the man claimed he was ambushed by HR and his manager on a three-way phone call over a "potential social media breach" just weeks after the allegedly treasonous online activity transpired.

The man said "in the heat of the moment" the five-minute interaction led him to hang up, block his manager's phone number, and hand over his notice the next day. 

The ATO refused his request to withdraw his resignation after he had a change of heart three weeks later. 

Public servants thinking about throwing in the towel, you've been warned.

How LinkedIn brought down a 24-year public service career

Bernard Martin

The Fair Work Commission (FWC) recently dealt with a case involving a worker who claimed he was dismissed after his employer refused to allow him to withdraw his resignation.

The worker argued that he resigned under duress following a phone call about a LinkedIn comment he had made, and that his employer's refusal to accept his withdrawal of resignation amounted to a dismissal.

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