How you can resist funding the government → about the IRS and U.S. tax law/policy → IRS incompetence → headquarters under 20 feet of water

The IRS Headquarters Building at 1111 Constitution Ave. NW in Washington, D.C. is likely to remain closed for at least 30 days due to flooding and electrical outages. The building sustained extensive damage to the infrastructure, office furniture and supplies.

The subbasement was submerged in more than 20 feet of water. The subbasement holds all of the building’s electrical and maintenance equipment such as electrical transformers, electrical switchgears, and chillers. Although these systems require closer inspection, they appear to be 95 percent damaged or destroyed.

The basement was flooded with five feet of water. The fitness center, food service canteens, offices, systems furniture, carpet, ceiling tiles, computer equipment and servers, and vehicles garaged in the building were all destroyed.

While an assessment of total damage will not be completed for several more days, costs are expected to run in the tens of millions of dollars.

They are quick to add that all this “will not impact the IRS’s service and enforcement operations,” which beggars belief.

The storm that put the basement of the IRS headquarters in Washington under 20 feet of water was even worse than reported earlier this month. The latest word is that the necessary tens of millions of dollars of repairs won’t be complete this year and won’t even be able to begin until the building dries out in another 30 days or so.

The building’s 2,400 employees have been temporarily assigned to other offices or are working from home.

Amazing if true:

In June 2006, the subbasement and basement of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) National Headquarters building in Washington, D.C., were flooded with over 20 feet of water. The IRS responded by implementing business resumption plans that contain specific procedures for managing such events. While the flood displaced over 2,200 IRS personnel who worked in the building, TIGTA found no measurable impact on taxpayers and tax administration.

This is a little discouraging to anyone who daydreams of a frontal assault on the nation’s tax-collecting bureaucracy. Apparently they’re pretty resilient.

On the other hand, maybe TIGTA was just measuring the wrong thing:

[W]e found no measurable impact on taxpayers and tax administration. We attribute this to the nature of the work performed at this building and the contingency plans the IRS had in place and implemented to manage the crisis. The IRS personnel who work in the Headquarters building are involved with strategy, program planning and monitoring, and other activities that do not require a significant amount of day-to-day contact with taxpayers.