That is the lobby portion. There is also a fairly large portion of the country that doesn't want to make it easier to file taxes because it encourages complacency with having the government take some of your money.
Not just them. There's a whole contingency of right wing (both D & R) donors who ask for making taxes frustrating for most, as they don't want people to look favorably on the act of paying taxes, to keep people like the late Justice Holmes Jr. a minuscule minority.
That corporatism is a part of it, but not the entire story. It's not like the IRS is a helpless victim of capitalist lobbying here. The IRS, and all parts of government, like having power over peoples' lives.
If even the IRS doesn't know what their own rules are within the many pages of vague, complicated, and contradictory rules, what chance does an average person have to not mess up at least one thing in their taxes? The immense complexity of the tax code and the chance for getting something wrong gives them power to theoretically try and ruin anybody they want to go after, or at least have them have a lot of influence over peoples lives.
Governments want power and influence, and the IRS isn't going to vote to give away their own power. Having everybody being afraid of the IRS and making people jump through hoops gives them power and influence. This type of power isn't something that will go away with a fight.
> It's not like the IRS is a helpless victim of capitalist lobbying here.
I'm not sure who you think is concerned about the feelings of the IRS, or its victimization. You've got the victims all topsy-turvy. Congress, an unbroken chain of bipartisan administrations, and their IRS are the perpetrators. The corporate cash is literally the only reason they care.
> the IRS isn't going to vote to give away their own power.
The IRS doesn't vote. Your theories of power are weird.
> I'm not sure who you think is concerned about the feelings of the IRS,
The IRS isn't exactly mute and helpless.
If the IRS came out at some inquiry and loudly said "Millionaires and billionaires can hire a tax firm to deal with these piles of paperwork we make people fill out, but it's a disgrace that normal people have to spend a great deal of time/money and life stress dealing with their taxes, when we already very likely know exactly what the upper theoretical bound of their tax payment is."
> The corporate cash is literally the only reason they care.
The reason for anything complicated cannot usually only be attributed to one reason. Money is always big influence, but so is power, and probably other variables.
> The IRS doesn't vote.
They're not literally voting, but they're choosing what benefits them the most, right?
Are you familiar with an exploratory task force or committee being where ideas are sent to be killed?
> Your theories of power are weird.
My theories of power are literally the standard throughout all of human history.
People very rarely voluntarily give up power that exists that benefits them.
Giving up power is so rare that the very few examples of it we have in human history, such as George Washington declining power, are heavily celebrated.
Congress owns the IRS's budget. They control the tax laws.
What the IRS wants as an org is ultimately irrelevant, they're beholden to elected officials, who are in turn beholden to their voters and donors -- with a strong emphasis on the latter.
