-Caveat Lector-
TUESDAY
DECEMBER 21
1999
The tax man slippeth
IRS fears collapse
of revenue system
By Julie Foster
� 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
Internal Revenue Service statistics for fiscal year
1999 show that enforcement actions have resulted
in a $1.3 billion decline in unpaid tax collections --
a decrease amounting to only a fraction of the $1.8
trillion in taxes collected in 1999, and yet which
some government officials fear will lead to the
eventual breakdown of the U.S. tax system.
"We really don't want it to go down any more
than it has," said IRS Commissioner Charles
Rossoti, according to an Associated Press report.
"We're trying to keep the ship afloat."
The commissioner's fears are echoed by other top
IRS officials who say the decline in enforcement
action collections must be reversed or the integrity
of the entire tax system could be placed at risk.
Several factors have been cited as the cause of the
decline in collections, including the steady
reduction of some 15,000 agency employees over
the last few years, as well as the temporary shift of
some collections agents to other duties, such as
answering taxpayer telephone queries.
Also blamed is the new requirement that the IRS
must prove a taxpayer is delinquent -- a change
from previous policy which put the burden of
proof on the taxpayer's shoulders.
The IRS Restructuring Reform Act of 1998,
sponsored by Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas, granted
several other new rights to taxpayers accused by
the IRS of owing more money to the government,
and included a section dealing with Service
employees who violate those taxpayers' rights.
Section 1203 of the new law made such actions as
agent harassment or retaliation against taxpayers
punishable by immediate dismissal which cannot
be appealed, sending panic and confusion through
the ranks of IRS agents who feared they would
lose their jobs, according to Colleen Kelley,
president of the National Treasury Employees
Union.
"There was a lot of uncertainty. Employees did
need clarity about the new rules and what was
expected of them," said Kelley.
Kelley also noted that the first round of Section
1203 investigations were done "fairly," and that
the IRS was "applying appropriate standards" in
its investigation of union employees.
Rossoti said thousands of agents have received
intensive training about the new law and taxpayer
rights, but also noted that he believes more money
is needed from Congress in order to hire
additional staff and purchase better technology to
reverse the agency's decline in collections.
Critics, however, maintain more money for the
Internal Revenue Service will not reverse the trend
of slipping collections, nor prevent the demise of
the tax system.
"This has very little to do with fear over lost
revenue, and a lot to do with fear over lost
powers," said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the
National Taxpayers Union. "What will cause the
system to collapse is the complexity of the tax
code."
Sepp called IRS and press accounts of the decline
in collections "over-exaggerated," saying that
while the $1.3 billion loss sounds like a vast
amount of money, it pales in comparison to the
total amount of tax revenue collected each year by
the IRS.
However small the decline, Rossotti believes
Americans will look to the statistics and be enticed
to cheat on their taxes.
"What we want to achieve is maximum
compliance," he said. "Everybody should want
that, if they're an honest taxpayer, because it
means nobody is getting away with something."
The problem is that honest taxpayers account for
much of the unpaid revenue, according to Sepp,
who told WorldNetDaily that the confusing
nature of the tax code causes mistakes, leading to
the delinquent accounts.
Sepp also noted that the same law blamed for
sending panic among IRS employees and resulting
in diminished collections also calls for the
development of a board of directors to give
guidance and instruction the agency says it needs.
"If we want to assign blame, there's plenty to go
around," said Sepp, who noted that the White
House is responsible for nominating potential
board members.
The board is to be made up of both public and
private sector representatives, due to have been
nominated by the White House by January 1999.
However, with no nominations having been made
and Congress now in recess, development of the
board is unlikely in the near future, said Sepp.
Once nominated, members must be confirmed by
Congress, which does not reconvene until Jan. 24,
2000.
Specific numbers for fiscal 1999, which ended on
Sep. 30, show the following IRS actions:
504,403 levies on delinquent taxpayers' bank
accounts and wages, down from 2.5 million
in 1998 and 3.1 million in 1997;
161 property seizures, down from 2,300 in
1998 and 10,000 in 1997;
167,867 property liens, down from 544,000
two years ago.
Money collected from such methods totaled $6.5
billion in 1999, which is $1.3 billion less than was
collected last year.
� 1999 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
This page was last built 12/20/99; 9:28:27 PM
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Bard
America, Mark Twain once said, is a nation without a distinct criminal
class
"with the possible exception of Congress."
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