Protection from the IRS

Overgrown government cannot survive without terrorizing its citizens. The most obvious examples of this are the totalitarian governments with their KGBs and Gestapos. As the United States government has grown well beyond its constitutional boundaries, even it has developed agencies to cow its citizens. The BATF and the FBI have achieved the greatest notoriety in recent years, but the agency most feared and hated by Americans is still the Internal Revenue Service.

Most of us do not cower in our homes waiting for the midnight knock on our doors. After all, we do pay our taxes, and we know that there is still a limit to what the IRS can get away with in America. But we have all read about people like Mona Oliver, the pregnant woman who was dragged from her Volkswagen and thrown to the street while IRS agents confiscated her car. We have all heard of people who have been driven into bankruptcy because they dared to dispute a trivial sum with the IRS. What American does not shudder at the thought of an IRS audit, with the awesome power of the US government pitted against a helpless citizen? I confess to some feeling that I should not publicize these words, for fear of attracting some such action against myself! If this isn't a system of terror, I don't know what is.

One US Representative is trying to do something about the IRS' untrammeled power. Congressman Traficant (D. Ohio) has introduced H.R. 390, a bill to provide some protection for citizens who are being unjustly attacked by the IRS. The title of the bill is "To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide that the burden of proof shall be on the Secretary of the Treasury in all tax cases, and for other purposes."

In the American legal system, it is fundamental that the burden of proof is always on the accuser. This means that the accused doesn't have to prove that he didn't commit a crime; the accuser has to prove that he did. The IRS is notorious for its ability to circumvent this requirement. If a taxpayer cannot prove that his accounting claims are true, the IRS can and does make its own assumptions about that taxpayer's income and expenses. They will then proceed as if the case against the taxpayer had been proven. This is exactly backwards, and completely un-American. H.R. 390 places the IRS under the same legal requirement as any other accuser. Without proof of wrongdoing, they will have to leave the taxpayer alone.

The bill adds two other safeguards against IRS abuse of our citizens. One tactic that the IRS can use to make it difficult for citizens to oppose their depredations is to refuse a request for information about the specific law or regulation that they are accused of violating. H.R. 390 requires the Secretary of the Treasury (and his employees in the IRS) to provide such information within 14 days of such a request.

Finally, the current maximum damages that a citizen can collect from the IRS for their illegal actions is $100,000. This is not likely to be enough to cover the legal costs of fighting the IRS in court, so many disputing taxpayers will end up paying more than the amount of taxes in dispute. H.R. 390 increases that amount to $1,000,000. Unfortunately, the IRS employees who initiated the illegal collection action will not be personally liable for any of these damages, but this is still a step in the right direction.

Terror agencies like the IRS have no place in America. There is movement in Congress to replace the income tax system with some less intrusive tax. The IRS may be abolished as part of that effort. Meanwhile, we need to write our Representative and Senators supporting H.R. 390.