Abortion! Gun-Control! Homosexual Marriages! Certainly, the three issues just mentioned are all capable of creating a maelstrom of public controversy. However, one issue that reaches across all spectrum of society, albeit one provoking less prejudice but no less emotionalism, is taxation. As such, the federal agency whose mission is to collect taxes has a long history of public animosity, reorganization and reform, and a host of other organizational and administrative obstacles with which to deal. Since its creation in 1862 the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), an agency within the United States Department of the Treasury, has often because of its duties been the target of much public and political scorn:
The IRS is responsible for enforcing the internal revenue laws. The IRS is administered by the commissioner of internal revenue, who is appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. Its main functions are to encourage voluntary compliance with the tax laws and regulations by providing information and assistance to taxpayers and to take action when necessary and appropriate to enforce the laws. Revenues are collected through individual income taxes; corporation taxes; excise, estate, and gift taxes; and social security taxes.
This analysis will discuss the history and public perception of the agency responsible for this thankless mission. A conclusion will address a possible solution for making this often tyrannically perceived organization into one that is much more efficient and cost effective than the present bureaucratized, inefficient, and selectively prosecuting agency that it is.
Historically, taxation has always been a difficult political issue. From the Whiskey Rebellion, touched off by Pittsburgh farmers who owned stills and refused to pay taxes, to the computer revolution which brought its own inherent problems, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (as the IRS was known before the 1950s) has long had...