The IRS is expanding its National Research Program to investigate tax compliance related to employment taxes, according to a report ($) in Bureau of National Affairs this morning. The National Research Program is an intensive study and data collection project that helps the IRS to properly screen and target non-compliant tax returns for auditing.

Over the next few months, as the October 10 recipient reporting deadline approaches, expect to see many more articles such as this one out of New York City. Apparently, the city is having some problems with estimating how many jobs are being created through teh Recovery Act. With the Office of Management and Budget leaving it up to recipients to estimate/guess how many jobs are being created, such articles are going to be inevitable. The question is whether or not OMB decides to do anything about it, and rework the guidlines for Recovery Act job estimation. A good place to start? Introducing a more effective full-time equivalent standard, or the number of hours that constitute a full-time job. Right now, states can decide on their own what constitutes a full-time job, which makes it difficult to compare projects across state lines. Standardizing the full-time equivalent across the country would be a great first step towards taking the guesswork out of job estimation.

Image by Flickr user sensesmaybenumbed used under a Creative Commons license.

It looks like government-sponsored Citigroup has ambled back to the racetrack, cash in hand, ready to put big bucks down on Long Nose in the third.

Yesterday, Gary wrote about the latest federal budget deficit numbers and noted that, well, there's no need to freak out. Aside from freaking out, understanding how the federal budget got to this level is essential to evaluating budgetary policy options going forward.