Tax Racket
Reforming the
IRS ... for Whom?
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An IRS processing Center on April
14.
Photo ŠThor Swift, Impact Visuals |
Last year, Congress passed a bill to reform
the Internal Revenue Service. Some aspects of the bill went virtually unreported. In
particular, you may not have heard that the IRS chicken coop is now guarded by foxes.
The IRS reform bill, which was unanimously passed in the Senate, created
an IRS "oversight board" dominated by private-sector executives. The board will
include the Treasury Secretary, the IRS commissioner, a full-time government employee or
representative, and six private-sector "experts" selected by the President and
approved by the Senate. The board, according to the IRS, is charged with overseeing the
agency’s "administration, management, conduct, direction and supervision,
execution and application of tax laws."
Bob McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice notes in New York Newsday that
under the new law, the oversight board "will have significant authority over the IRS
budget. It could decide, for instance, that the IRS is devoting too much energy to
cracking down on corporate tax cheats and should shift its attention to individuals. Or it
might push to move tax-enforcement resources away from multinational corporations and
toward smaller companies."
Incredibly, Republicans on the Senate committee that considered the
overhaul plan made a major issue of the one worker representative on the oversight board
— even though the person will be vastly outnumbered by corporate executives. Senate
Majority Leader Trent Lott actually argued that the presence of both the IRS commissioner
and the worker rep on the board would "compromise the board’s
independence."
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