Readers React: The IRS can already confiscate wages and property. It has enough power

To the editor: The Internal Revenue Service can freeze your bank accounts, grab your property, garnish your paycheck and throw you in jail. Op-Ed article writers Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson want the IRS to have even more power than it already has. (“Don’t get mad at the IRS on tax day, pray for it to get more powerful,” Opinion, APril 15)

We can only hope that doesn’t happen.

Of course, the Republicans are blamed for the inefficiency of the agency, but citizens across the political spectrum have never been fans of the IRS. Most taxpayers would like to see the agency de-clawed. The last thing they want is for it to be empowered.

I’m sure most Americans believe that paying taxes is necessary. Unfortunately, that same majority isn’t convinced that the money taken out of their paychecks translates into good government. That is the real problem.

Charles Reilly, Manhattan Beach

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To the editor: Hacker and Pierson misrepresent both the founding fathers’ and the Republican Party’s taxation policies.

There was no personal income tax in this country until the Civil War. The founding fathers had no idea of the kind of confiscatory taxation that would be taking place in this country after the 16th Amendment was adopted in 1913. The “progressive” idea of taxation is taken directly from the unscientific rantings of Karl Marx, not the wisdom of Adam Smith.

At various times the federal government has had marginal income tax rates higher than 80% and 90%, which demonstrates not progress but ignorance of basic economic principles. It is precisely this kind of stupidity that has led to the backlash against the IRS.

Patrick M. Dempsey, Granada Hills

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