Blurb in 10/1/98 WSJ Tax Column

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Blurb in Wall Street Journal 10/1/98 Tax Column sez, "IRS struggles to avoid meltdown from dreaded year 2000 bug. Commish Rossotti sez they are approaching, "the moment of truth" very soon and can't promise there won't be problems. Is he right?

-- michael thompson (rms@gbonline.com), October 02, 1998

Answers

He should probably know, shouldn't he? I'm just surprised that he's saying it.

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), October 02, 1998.

Every government agency and every business is approaching "the moment of truth". I doubt whether any can promise there won't be problems. Will anyone care, though, until TSHTF? Until or unless someone publicly admits that their company/agency/department is toast, I suspect that no one will.

-- Steve Hartsman (hartsman@ticon.net), October 03, 1998.

Correction. I suspect FEW will.

-- Steve Hartsman (hartsman@ticon.net), October 03, 1998.

Thanks, Steve.

It's nice to have been upgraded from a 'no one' to a 'few.'

rocky

-- rocky knolls (rknolls@hotmail.com), October 03, 1998.


What's curious though, is that no one (not even "some one's") has considered how many tax cheats will short the government when word gets out tat the IRS is failing to audit returns and businesses. (Would like to audit, but can't audit becuase the y can't "coordinate compliant and non-compliant tax reports from compliant and non-compliant businesses).

Gotta look carefully there at spelling - everybody is a potential complaint, few are compliant.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), October 03, 1998.



Michael, a minor correction, just for the record. That story was in the 9/30/98 WSJ, not 10/1/98. I had missed seeing it and it took a little digging. Thanks for mentioning the story it makes for a good quote. <<<<<>>>>>

-- Dan Hunt (dhunt@hostscorp.com), October 04, 1998.

If y'all look at gao.gov (the General Accounting Office) Home page. Click on "Reports and Testimony", scroll down the page to "Special Publications", click on "Year 2000 Computing Crisis", then scroll down that page till you see a report "I.R.S. Risks..." dated 5/7/98. The report states basically that the GAO has a problem with the IRS management because they have no contingency plan for the IRS, if their Y2K testing fails. Testing is to start on 1/31/99 (the very beginning of the filing season). Of course the GAO did not mention that the IRS was only about 20 to 25% compliant as of 5/7/98.

HEEEELLLLLOOOOO...Of course the testing is going to fail. Soooo, my advice, as a professional tax preparer, is either file REAL early or don't expect your refund check in this Century!!

Many Happy Returns...and have a Nice Day.

Larry

-- Larry Olney (taxman@kincyb.com), October 08, 1998.


And if the IRS is known be failing to be able to even load programs, much less run them, much less get useable data into and out of them, much less coordinate data betwenn filers and banks and employee or companies reports, how many tax cheaters will take advantage of the confusion, and what will Uncle Sammy do to prevent it money from being cut off?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), October 08, 1998.

What do you think the odds are, under the circumstances, of going to a flat tax? Did you see in Russia that their "need cash now" government has decided to take over controlling interest in the vodka manufacturers and tax what's left of them?

-- Melissa (financed@forbin.com), October 08, 1998.

Once Congress sees that they aren't going to get a paycheck, they will probably enact a National Sales Tax...er, Flat Tax...er, take all your money you haven't spent yet, or something like that.

-- Larry Olney (taxman@kincyb.com), October 08, 1998.


Larry,

Why did you indicate 03/31/1999 as a "beginning" of the tax filing date? I agree, it too late to have a "test" scheduled, and worse, software often gets delivered late, so the actual performance of the test could be 2 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks later. But I can't figure out the significance of the end of March, 1999.

Obviously, 04/15/1999 is filing deadlines for individuals for 1998 regular taxes, and (I think) companies have to send monthly deposits of half of their "greedy capitalistic "profits every month, but why March.

End of first quarter of 1999?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), October 08, 1998.


Put your glasses on Robert and reread the post. :-)

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), October 08, 1998.

Oops, 1/31/1999. makes more sense: end of January = beginning of individuals filing 1998 taxes, right? Why not test in late 1998?

They weren't ready to do it then, most likely.

Wanna bet everybody reading these gets audited? I know a couple of us already have...

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), October 08, 1998.


Thank you Gayla...I'm sure Robert stands corrected, back to January 31, 1999.

Larry

-- Larry Olney (taxman@kincyb.com), October 08, 1998.


Geeezzz Robert

You didn't have to use the "A" word.

Have a good night, I gotta go prepare some more tax returns. Ya know the deadline for SECOND extensions is October 15th...then there are UGLY Penalties.

Take care.

Larry

-- Larry Olney (taxman@kincyb.com), October 08, 1998.



Okay......|88<)

That better?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), October 08, 1998.


why worry about it at all? see http://www.1313mockingbirdlane.com/skinner/

-- mr anon (anon@anon.net), October 09, 1998.

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