Abolishing IRS ‘silly,’ says agency watchdog

Abolishing the Internal Revenue Service would be “silly,” the agency’s in-house watchdog said.

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson told MarketWatch that while the agency could be smaller, proposals to do away with it are impractical.

{mosads}“I don’t know how people think that would happen,” said Olson, who heads an independent organization in the IRS that offers recommendations on changes to the agency to Congress and helps taxpayers resolve issues.

“People talk about, ‘Oh, all we need is a postcard’ [to file taxes on]. Well, you’re going to need some agency that you send a postcard to, and you’re going to need some employees to process that postcard.”

Several Republican presidential candidates have called for scrapping the IRS altogether.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has said the IRS could be eliminated under his tax plan because his proposal would allow people to fill out their taxes on a postcard.

Olson told MarketWatch that she expects there to be fewer logistical problems in the 2016 tax season than there were this year. She praised the $290 million increase in IRS funding included in the government spending package recently signed into law.

“The additional funding will be extremely helpful over the next two years,” she said.