A Welcome Watchdog

President Clinton’s plan for an independent citizens review panel to monitor the behavior of the Internal Revenue Service is a frank acknowledgment that government, left to its own, can’t always be trusted to deal responsibly with the people it serves. The watchdog body that administration officials envision is expected to include a national review board along with 33 local boards that would take complaints from taxpayers and scrutinize the activities of each IRS district office.

Just another layer of bureaucracy? Not at all, if the proposed entity is properly set up and if it meets the needs that recent disclosures of abuses of power by the IRS so starkly exposed.

An indication of the problem’s magnitude is provided by the experience of the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate, an IRS oversight agency created in 1995 as part of the administration’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Though little known to the general public, the Office of Taxpayer Advocate last year issued more than 30,000 “taxpayer assistance orders” in response to IRS actions it deemed overzealous or unfair. Here is proof, if any was needed, that there are a lot of legitimate grievances out there. Our guess is that the independent review panels will have few idle moments. If they’re set up right and if they do their job, public confidence in the IRS just might be restored.