Apparently it’s that time again. That time when we poke fun at the IRS for idiotic mistakes, bad judgment, unfair rules, . . . horrendous training videos. It has already become a regular topic for many writers and bloggers, but just how regular and how idiotic is up to the IRS.
Well, to be fair, the latest IRS training video, a spoof on Donald Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” was produced in 2011, around the same time as the now famous Gilligan’s Island and Star Trek videos. So to say that the IRS is in total control of the negative press isn’t completely true; they’re still dealing with repercussions from the mistakes of a prior era, as they put it. They claim to have a shorter chain on management and those that would have approved the ridiculous videos now. Hopefully by now they have learned their lesson and are going to stick to things they are good at like bank levies and wage garnishment.
The Apprentice parody ranks right up there with the worst ever made. I cannot for life of me imagine how it cost the IRS $10,000 to produce such utter garbage. It was obviously filmed in one take, so even if they had to rent out the conference room to get just the right lighting and feel, it could not have been for more than a few hours. They saved money on props by making some of them by hand and bringing others from home. They saved money on wardrobe by wearing their own suits. They even scrimped on the wig worn by the guy playing the part of “The Donald” — it was completely wrong. Way too thick and way too dark. And if they paid more than $100 to whoever was responsible for writing that train wreck of a script, then they got hustled. One thing is for sure: these are 100% legitimate IRS amateurs, not paid actors, because they are horrible.
It’s pretty obvious that I derive a certain amount of selfish joy from critiquing IRS videos, but my primary reason for doing it is to help expose the underlying problem of waste. This exposure has been difficult for the IRS. Public relations are not the best right now. I hope they have learned their lesson.