The IRS needs money to make money

Plus: Our plastic addiction. [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a sad salad of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - The IRS has a [money problem](. - Tesla has a [plastic problem](. - Geoengineers have a [permission problem](. - The Winklevoss twins have a [reputation problem](. It’s Not Giving … Cafeteria I have two simple questions for you: What did you eat for lunch today, and where did you eat it? Sounds delicious. Now imagine eating your leftover beef bourguignon or [sad salad]( here: Photo by Matthew Busch via [The Washington Post]( [This is the cafeteria]( at the IRS offices in Austin. Note it’s filled not with dining accountants but with an endless sea of document files. Whatever emotions arise when you think about IRS workers, you can’t deny their cafeteria isn’t doing what a cafeteria is supposed to do. More importantly, the agency’s [cash-starved auditing system]( isn’t doing its job either, writes Alexis Leondis, leaving potentially trillions of dollars in revenue on the table. Between 2014 and 2016, for example, the agency collected just 14% of unpaid taxes owed, or a whopping [$68 billion](. Wealthier taxpayers, including big companies, are most likely to triumph over an underfunded and poorly fed auditing team. The money spent on their audits gets wasted in the process. House Republicans just [shot down]( $80 billion in funding that would have upgraded the agency’s capabilities, Alexis notes. The thought of IRS agents remaining miserable may please you, until you consider it will also add to the federal budget deficit. And that in turn will have us smashing more often into the debt ceiling, a dumb thing that has people contemplating desperate measures such as [trillion-dollar coins and premium bonds](, a concept Matt Levine is thrilled to tell you all about. The IRS’s cafeteria-turned-file room is the least of our worries. Pimp My Ride If our nagging fossil-fuel use is like acne, then Tesla and other [energy-efficient cars]( have long promised to be Accutane. They were going to spell [the end of oil demand](, finally clearing up our environment. And the trends have been promising. [People are driving to work less often](. Investors are pouring [trillions into clean energy]( and [shunning fossil fuels](. [Peak oil demand is in sight](. But one bad habit we can’t shake — [plastics]( — keeps [negating all our progress on oil](, writes Javier Blas: “American oil demand will rise to near-record levels in 2024 despite a significant drop in gasoline use,” Javier writes. If the US can’t curb [its hunger for petrochemicals](, hope for lower oil demand [will fly out of the window]( — even if it’s the window of a Tesla Model S. Bonus EV Reading: Telsa and BYD show [there’s more than one way to make an EV](. — Anjani Trivedi Blotting Out the Sun Isn’t For Everybody The advice to “ask for forgiveness, not for permission” is often pretty sound. But then you see Gwen Stefani blurting out “I’m Japanese!” [in an interview]( and you remember you should check everything with your [publicist](, [at least](. Then there’s [the geoengineering startup]( that decided it was a good idea to pump sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere without checking with anybody first. Blotting out the sun may be a viable last-ditch strategy to cool the planet, Faye Flam writes, but this is far, far from settled science. And the potential downsides are [horrific](. Incredibly, there is no law against private companies chucking stuff into the upper atmosphere to see what happens. For now, their projects are too small to make a dent in the sun-Earth equilibrium, but maybe it’s time we start requiring permission slips at the very least. [Read the whole thing](. Telltale Charts “The Winklevoss brand is severely [tarnished](,” Bloomberg Opinion columnist Aaron Brown told Olga Kharif today, after the twins alleged customers of their Gemini Earn crypto-lending vehicle were defrauded by its partner, Barry Silbert’s Genesis Global Trading. All the 340,000 customers care about is [the $900 million they’re still owed](, Lionel Laurent writes. Good luck getting that back. [TikTok’s obsession]( with pickled mussels and smoked sardines has ushered in the dawn of what we could call the “Tinned Fish Economy.” But if this chart from Andrea Felsted is any indication, our preference for eating $2 cans of tuna on the couch may soon ebb [as grocery prices peak](. This is [wonderful news]( for our bank accounts, but terrible news for grocery stores (and [tinned fish]( companies). Further Reading Half a million Americans have no place to call home, and [simply throwing them in hospitals isn’t a solution](. — Bloomberg’s editorial board [Merging two shaky SPACs]( does not make one strong one. — Chris Bryant Emerging markets are [soaring](, but China’s roller-coaster ride [may induce nausea](. — John Authers and Shuli Ren China’s pandemic policy is a tale of two polar opposites — [it’s either Covid Zero or Covid for Everyone](. — Gearoid Reidy To find the source of China’s competitive edge in trade, [Congress should start by looking in the mirror](. — Mihir Sharma ICYMI The FAA’s system outage [made a mess](. Mexico’s president did a [28-minute monologue]( in front of Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau. Apple might [add touch screens]( to Macs. Americans think Congress has [lower ethical standards]( than journalists and car salesmen. Kickers Why does Austin Butler [still speak like Elvis](? Area seal, unaware of fishing ban, [eats all the fish]( in the lake. (h/t Mark Gilbert) M3GAN is an [LGBTQ+ cult icon](. Men will do more physics than women [until the year 2158](. [The grossest thing in your kitchen]( is surprisingly not your sponge. Notes:  Please send fish (tinned or otherwise) and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( | [Ad Choices]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022