"Specifically, for every dollar spent on the IRS, government takes in 5-7 dollars."
"Customer service wait times, ie help filling out forms, has already more than doubled due to lack of staffing to answer calls. Nearly 40% of callers give up and hangup before even being helped. There's the issue of tax fraud that they are unable to prevent/investigate because of lack of staffing, meaning some of the refunds they payout are fraudlent."
Have you considered that the apparent 'profitability' of the IRS (the 5-7 dollar return mentioned by you) is due to artificially low expenses, such as customer service?
And if the laws are so complex that the IRS needs exorbitant funding to *properly* serve their customers, perhaps the answer is to improve the 'product', i.e. the tax code?
The government doesn't work like a for-profit business. Pretending it does is dangerous. Pretending the job of the IRS is to maximize revenue collected is also admitting you believe government should collect the maximum tax revenue permitted. Our federal government was initially founded as a limited institution. I am no longer certain it is considered as such by our representatives, courts, and the Executive Branch, and, worse, by many citizens. We will suffer for this.