IRS Abuse of Authority

The Internal Revenue Service has taken a hard look at itself and found a government agency deeply blemished by improprieties that have sometimes crossed the line into unambiguous lawbreaking. As a new internal investigation puts it, the IRS has “created an environment that has placed some taxpayers at risk of abridgement of their rights.” That’s a bureaucratic way of admitting that the IRS abused its authority, violated its responsibilities to taxpayers by sometimes operating on the basis of statistical goals instead of fairness and in too many instances made life miserable for a lot of people who deserved better.

Charles O. Rossoti, recently installed as IRS commissioner, promises to correct these failings. Congress is already well on its way to imposing some remedial measures of its own.

A lot about the mistreatment of taxpayers described in the IRS’ nationwide survey is familiar stuff, first brought to wide public attention through last year’s televised hearings of the Senate Finance Committee and subsequently augmented by a smaller IRS internal survey. Among the worst of the abuses has been the use of numerical quotas as a way to evaluate employees, especially managers of the IRS’ 33 district offices, which conduct audits.

Numerical goals were outlawed by Congress a decade ago, in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, for good and obvious reasons. Any system that provides pay or promotion incentives based on the collection of delinquent taxes, the issuance of liens or the seizure of property is an open invitation to overzealous enforcement. If police officers were compensated on the basis of how many traffic tickets they wrote, it’s a good bet that a lot of motorists would find themselves unfairly cited. Set up numerical goals within the IRS and an obsessive pursuit of suspected delinquent taxpayers is sure to follow. That is not the way to run the IRS or any other government agency.

The IRS is assigned the least popular job in government, and one of the most essential. To a far greater extent than many people realize, it also relies on voluntary compliance with the tax laws. The great majority of Americans do not deliberately cheat on their taxes, though many are left bewildered by the complexities of the enormous tax code that Congress has produced and to which it regularly adds. The law expects and encourages taxpayers to be honest. It also insists that the IRS be fair and respectful of taxpayers’ rights. Too often, the IRS has simply failed in that responsibility.