Word: grossness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...state-of-the-art when color television was a novelty, the agency harvested about $1.5 trillion from more than 200 million individual and corporate taxpayers in 1996. Over the past decade it has spent nearly $4 billion in an attempt to bring its computers up to date. But Arthur Gross, the assistant IRS commissioner who is the agency's first world-class information-systems officer, concedes that the IRS's computers "do not work in the real world...
...Gross describes the IRS's information network as a "stovepipe" system--vertically aligned computers that do not communicate with one another. Tracking down the records of a single taxpayer means getting access to as many as nine different computer systems. The once vaunted IRS computer system has trouble accomplishing what would seem to be the most basic of functions: reconciling Social Security numbers, W-2 forms and even the number of children in a household. Notes Gross: "Resolving taxpayer account issues often requires considerable research on multiple systems and a series of complex, time-consuming tasks to update the various...
...necessary to destroy the IRS in order to save it? Not quite. Remember, the IRS already collects what it estimates is 86% of the tax pie; to get to 90% should not be impossible and would mean an extra $65 billion or so. Gross's game plan--making incremental reforms and remedying the stovepipe problem while improving customer service and electronic filing--is a sensible start. The IRS should also consider the following...
...playing author Leslie Charteris' mysterious superhero, Kilmer got $8 million, a share of gross profits and the possibility of not only starring in but also helping produce a sequel. "I've tripled my price tag in the past two years," he says, "by being very fortunate in getting Batman, and then by just putting my head down and working a lot. I've moved into a league of the more proven...
...could even imagine the effects being felt here in Harvard's classrooms. Suppose the teaching fellows of Social Analysis 10: "Principles of Economics" are using a mainframe computer in Littauer to model the United States' gross domestic product from 1950 to 2050. Someone might be a bit curious after noticing a 50 percent drop in output after...