40 Years of Failure: IRS Unable to Fix Computer System

For 40 years the IRS has tried and failed to update its main computer system. Regardless of funding level and regardless of who controls the White House and Congress, the bureaucracy is simply unable to pull it off. The IRS and progressive Democrats continue to plead poverty and pretend the failure is due to insufficient funding rather than incompetence.

Below is a compilation of key news articles documenting the IRS failure, starting in 1982:

April 4, 1982: LAMENT OF THE REAGAN I.R.S.; By David Shribman, The New York Times

“Meanwhile, the I.R.S. is struggling with a data processing system that is, by its own admission, ‘grossly short of the capacity and modern state-of-the-art efficiency that is essential for an effective tax system in the 1980’s.’

Its computer data facilities, parts of which are as many as 17 years old, must be replaced. The agency plans to put into effect a modernization program by 1985, replacing computers in its local service centers, buying a computerized microfilm research system and replacing outmoded hardware at the service’s National Computer Center.