I’m sure all fellow tax pros can attest to the fact that every day in this business brings up new items and situations.  With all of the recent problems IRS has been having with its credibility, here’s a new one I haven’t seen before.  An IRS Collections Agent accidentally broadcast a phone call with a taxpayer on the Howard Stern radio show.

Taxpayer’s Call To IRS Accidentally Broadcast On Howard Stern’s Radio Show – from Forbes

Howard Stern Airs Taxpayer Phone Call to IRS – from Accounting Today

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The recording, with Howard Stern and Robin Quivers making fun of it.
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I guess, with all of the recent news stories about government employees spending most of their time at work surfing porn sites, the fact that an IRS agent had time to call in to the Stern show from his workplace isn’t that shocking.
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For decades, one of the methods IRS had to encourage everyone to disclose all of their financial data and pay taxes on all types of income was that such data would be held in the strictest of confidence and kept 100% completely private. This is even in the IRS’s so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

The Right To Privacy

The Right to Confidentiality

With the recent disclosures that personal tax return info has been shared with various members of the bHo Regime for political retribution, it’s been obvious that what is shown on tax returns is no longer private or confidential and IRS has failed to honor its own promises to the tax paying public.  How much this decreases the willingness of taxpayers to fully disclose their financial details, we’ll have to see.

I don’t know how IRS intends to bounce back from their failure to honor their promises of privacy and confidentiality, but stories such as this one from Forbes are just digging them into a deeper hole.

Report Says Former IRS Employees–Think Lois Lerner–Can Still Peruse Your Tax Returns