The IRS isn’t a store selling you a product or service. It’s a protection racket that takes money from you whether you care to “do business” with it or not, on pain of fine or imprisonment for declining. If this is “customer service,” so is a mugger assisting you in getting your wallet out of your pants pocket.
This "protection racket" is the basis of our currency, the US dollar. Our need for the currency is driven by the government's ability to levy and collect taxes that are only payable in that currency and its willingness to impose fines, also denominated in that currency, or jail time for non-compliance.
The monopoly issuer of a floating fiat currency never "needs" its own currency back to spend, so taxation is not a "funding" mechanism for it. Ditto for borrowing, but that is another topic, although related. Both serve to limit the amount of currency in the banking system, but primarily provide incentives to use the issuer's currency in commerce.
You do not fund your government. It funds you, and taxation is how modern governments control their economies. Their currencies are never your "property" and so they are regulated by the issuing authority. You can trade in any currency you choose, but be ready to pay the tax man when he demands payment in the denomination of the issuer, or suffer the consequences.
You’re required to beg the government for permission to travel, and fork over a bribe to get that permission, but hey, now you can beg and pay (the second time, anyway) online! Wow, what a deal!
Governments worldwide retain control of who enters and exits their jurisdictions. I'm betting you don't feel so passionate about the ability of people from other countries to freely come and go to the US. You libertarians are sounding more like spoiled children than reasonable thinking adults in our society every day.
For example, online tools for collecting Social Security benefits that come nowhere close to the return an indexed mutual fund would have provided had you been permitted to choose your own retirement plan. You’re not Social Security’s “customer.” Customers get to choose with whom they do business with and on what terms.
The one program that should be protested by anyone with a glimmer of cognizance about federal finance is the one you show the most approval for. Why was that predictable?
The FICA tax, and Medicare deductions, serve no purpose in "funding" future benefits. They are a capitulation to the general ignorance of Americans that serve to protect their "legal" claim to benefits, not fund them. They are also the most regressive tax in America's history and the biggest driver of income inequality.
If you believe that Social Security and Medicare are "funded" by payroll deductions and the Treasury bonds those purchase then explain why beneficiaries of both programs are cut off when we run into debt level conflicts in Congress. Here's a clue. They aren't, and never were.
Social Security provides the best proof of the correctness of MMT possible. "ALL" revenue of the US federal government is destroyed upon receipt by the "debt" that it originated from. This means that "ALL" federal spending is via new money creation and that the debt is nothing more than an accurate record of money created - taxes collected in our nation's history. It is the "net" money supply, not a mortgage on future productivity.
The bonds that represent the Social Security "fund" are void of any real money and are only a promise to pay (via new money creation) in the future. This means that the net effect of Social Security payments on the budget will be the same with or without the tax that only decreases the spending power of the working class.
Some of these “customer service improvements” may be real experiential improvements for you over previous methods, but they don’t magically make you into a “customer.” They just make government’s constant victimization less unpleasant.
I agree that "customer" is not an apt description. I greatly prefer "citizen" and appreciate the efforts to make that citizenship less stressful. I also prefer "society" over what you deem as "victimization" and will continue to do what I can to improve that for all of us. You should try it. It is far less anger-inducing.
