IRS woes...

Not that kind - we wound up owing this year but not too much. The link from Slashdot to the story in CIO Magazine is about the IRS's own troubles as it tries to modernize. Eight Billion Dollars of our money down the rabbit-hole... bq. By assembling a star-studded team of vendors, the IRS thought its $8 billion modernization project would manage itself. The IRS thought wrong. Now the agency's ability to collect revenue, conduct audits and go after tax evaders has been severely compromised. There are so many nuggets in this article that it is really hard to excerpt 'sound bites'. If this subject is of interest, read it -- it will make you think a bit more about getting some property and laying in some supplies... This is not a simple thing. Also, the comments from the Slashdot reference are really cynical. Here is one: bq. You work in the private sector -- where a CTO's responsibility is to implement the new technology and deliver results. bq. I can guarantee you that actually completing a project is not the goal of any government CTO. bq. In the public sector, the longer a project takes, the more favorable contracts can be handed out to friends and people from whom political favors can be extracted in the future. The more favors you're owed, the more power you have. The more power you have, the more people you can hire, the bigger your budget, and the more people who owe you favors. bq. If your goal is to decrease cost and increase customer service because there's competition that's ready, willing, and able to take customer dollars out of your pockets, those are bugs, not features. bq. If your goal is to increase cost and decrease customer service because there is no competition -- and the only way to get more dollars into your pocket is to increase your power, these are features, not bugs. bq. In brief: Government - working according to the parameters listed in its functional specification. OUCH!