SACRAMENTO, CA - As working Americans stare down the barrel of the April 15 tax deadline, they should check out the recent revelations about the Internal Revenue Service, that fun bunch that gets your hard-earned money even before you do in the form of withholding. The 100,000 employees of this government "service," as it turns
out, include outright criminals.

Theft is a crime and IRS employees stole more than $1 million in fiscal 1999, according to an audit by the
General Accounting Office (GAO), which also revealed that the IRS hired nearly 5,000 tax processors before
they completed their background checks. A full 138 of them had previous experience in theft, assault, and
weapons violations, just the sort of people who love to open envelopes containing large checks. But only 65 of
them were relieved of duty.

At one IRS center, employees gave a check for $28 million to an unarmed bicycle courier, who was unknown
to them, without asking for identification.

The agency that relentlessly hounds taxpayers and often seizes their assets over paltry amounts took as long as 10 years to even record some tax payments. In one quarter of sample cases, the IRS took too long to
remove tax liens on property, a source of misery for many taxpayers. It gets worse.

In fiscal 1999, the time covered in the GAO audit, the IRS made $51 million in bookkeeping errors, and its
accountants can’t even reconcile the agency’s own books. The GAO audit compared the agency to someone who
can’t balance his or her checkbook and instead just adjusts it to agree with the bank statement.

In a masterpiece of understatement, the agency conceded that it has problems. But agency bosses blame the
problems on, yes, outdated computers. Doubtless, that sparkling new Cray supercomputer would prevent an IRS
employee from handing over $28 million to some unemployed carnival worker riding a Schwinn. But these
revelations provide a much needed refresher course in government.

First, "the government" is not some superhuman entity but simply a group of individuals with powers under the
Constitution but with the same imperfections, vices, and blame-shifting evasions as everybody else. But as
the GAO audit shows, holding control over the incomes of the citizenry can make these vices worse. That is
why faith in government as a solver of social problems is misplaced and even destructive.

A government that cannot balance a checkbook, and which fails to perform its basic job of protecting life,
liberty, and property, cannot be relied upon to solve social problems on a massive scale.

There will be predictable outrage over IRS incompetence and criminality but no one important will lose his or
her job. Little will change without reforms that are not only deep but also simple and long overdue.

Withholding, a wartime relic, is not only immoral and unjust, it forces employers to work as tax collectors.
No one should get workers’ income before the workers themselves.

A simple flat tax, with one low rate for everyone, would make life easier for all and eliminate the need
for an Internal Revenue Service. If not in demand as accountants, some former IRS employees may find work in
the courier industry. That is, if they can pass the background check.

-- K. Lloyd Billingsley