Focus 580; A Law Unto Itself: The IRS and the Abuse of Power

He's amounting to billions of dollars in fines and it seems operate under the assumption that one is guilty until proven innocent and can seize assets both money and property and has access to a very large amount of information on all of us. We will be talking about the book again it's entitled a law unto itself power politics and the IRS. It's just been published by Random House. David Burnham for more than 15 years was an investigative reporter for The New York Times in both New York and Washington. He has reported on a number of issues on nuclear power for years before Three Mile Island. He was turning his attention to the problems involved with the nuclear power industry in fact Karen Silkwood was on her way to tell him about what was happening at Kerr-McGee in Oklahoma when she died in a car crash that is still still unresolved. Before the times Burnham worked for United Press International for Newsweek and for CBS and has received a number of awards for his work he's also the author of The Rise of the computer state which is an investigative book published in

1903 and how the growth of powerful computerized bureaucracies is gradually altering the nature of representative democracy. As we talk with David Burnham about a law unto itself. You folks who are listening are invited to call if you have questions for our guest. The telephone number here is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line and that's good anywhere that you can hear us that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Mr. Burnham Hello. Good morning. I think it's a good morning out there right. Yes it is it is still morning here for awhile. Thanks very much for talking with us. It's my pleasure. I guess I don't know if this is too big a question to start with or not but I suppose when when you think about the job that the IRS has been given you've got to admit that it is is staggeringly huge to keep track of all of the people who have sources of income in the country what they're supposed to know the federal government and to try to make sure that if they don't pay voluntarily that

they pay one way or another. It is a very big job. How well does the IRS do it. Well as you say it is a gigantic gigantic job. And in some sense they do a pretty good job. And of course the sense that it's always emphasized. You know the federal government does in fact collect about 1 trillion dollars a year in taxes. And that represents in fact. A You know substantially more than 90 percent of what it is calculated that the American people are oh. And that's very impressive. One must remember however that a great deal of the credit ought to go to corporations and organizations which so efficiently pay the withholding tax because four out of five of every of all tax

dollars come from withholding. And you know it that that is an amazing operation. That is really quite efficient but it's the efficiency of the corporate you know when those universities in the hospital isn't everything sending in the withholding that makes the system so good. So in that sense it's terrific where it's bad. Is that for millions and millions of taxpayers. It does things like It provides them with incorrect information. When you telephone or when you write them you know there was the General Accounting Office. The research arm of the IRS has been doing surveys over the years on how many times the IRS gives you a wrong answer when you telephone. And one third of the time one third of the time the IRS gives the wrong answer. And these are pretty simple questions that people come in with on the phone you know if you're if you're a rich

person with a complicated tax return you don't you know telephone your local Iraqi agent. And that really is any futile because you know the wrong information may lead an individual to violate the law or may lead him or her to overpay taxes. So yeah you have that. You have computers that send out wrong folder notices that they can't stop. Maybe a small percentage of people are hit by those. But again it amounts to hundreds of thousands perhaps millions of people. You have agents that carry out personal vendettas. And I have lots of examples of that. And the managers don't seem to be able to control the agents. And there are some just genuine horror stories. For example I think one of the more interesting stories that is is an agent in Colorado Denver and he wanted to get his house appraised and

so he called an appraiser and very heavy handed way he said you know I'm I work for the iris and I need a hundred twenty thousand dollars on my appraisal. And the appraiser said law give you what I think the house is worth gave me a hundred fifteen and boom the appraiser finds he is being audited. The IRS agent calls in the second agent appraiser and the same thing happens. Then this IRS agent goes to his boss and says Boss I have reason to believe that all the appraisers in the Denver area are crooks a tax cheat. And I think we ought to audit them all and the boss without thinking about it says OK. And they start a local special project where they're auditing all the appraisers in Denver. Now this is you know a vendetta that with a gun out of control the appraisers saw this and they went to their congressperson patch Roeder and she jumped up and then he

yelled and screamed and everything and the iris you know halted that thing because it was brought you know because of the pressure. But if. You know they had started on a thing all the appraisers these just been on it. These agents would have continued until this man got the appraisal he wanted. I mean you know outrageous misuse of power. Let me just repeat real quick for people who may have turned in our guest may have just tuned in our guest is David Burnham He's an investigative journalist. We're talking about his book a law unto itself the power politics and the IRS it's about the Internal Revenue Service it's just out from Random House. You have questions for our guest. Three three three wy allow eight hundred two to two wy allow one of you mention the fact that and I think it's been rather well publicized that studies indicate a lot of the information given out by the IRS is frequently incorrect or vague or.

Difficult to understand you mention in your book a study by the General Accounting Office that was released in eighty eight where they took a sample of correspondence from the IRS to taxpayers. And they found that almost half of it either had mistakes in it or it was incomplete or unclear. So we've heard a lot about those kinds of things. Maybe you could give an example of somebody who as an individual taxpayer who was really hurt by the IRS not as in your previous example really willfully but simply because the IRS was sloppy or there their own systems just didn't work the way they were supposed to. OK. I want one of the I think intriguing examples that I have to illustrate how you're ocracy. Get out of control and not a willful way and just sort of an

inadvertent sloppy way involves a couple named Gina and Paul husband. They live just north of San Francisco in Marin County a couple years ago. The Iris came to the husband and said you owe some additional taxes. They went to their lawyer. They have a tax lawyer that they worked with and they said to him his name is Monte de money do we owe additional taxes he looked it over and said No you don't. The iris is wrong. Now when that situation develops one step the taxpayer can take is to go to tax court. That's the special court that just handles tax cases. Gina and Paul has bee decided to go to tax court and they file the request to have

their case heard by one of the judges. When you file that request at that point the collection effort of the iris You know when they come after you for the money it's supposed to just stop. You know that's not it until the issue has been resolved in the court. Well they filed in the request for a court hearing. And they're sitting there and all of a sudden the husbands get one of these computerized Dunning noses which I'm not sure you've ever gotten one there with their word around the ferocious where you know you really better pay a very soon or you're in deep trouble. And there their lawyer money day went to the IRS and said here. I've already shown this I've already filed a copy with you. We are in tax court. This collection effort has to stop. That's under your rules the law no more no more notices and they are said OK we understand you're right.

We will send any more. So a month later the husband got the second notice and Mommy goes down again and says look you agree to not send these notices please stop it. You're right. Well stop it. Don't worry. Third notice. Well mommy's getting worried now. So he goes to federal court and gets an injunction ordering the iris prohibiting the iris from sending out any more notices until you know the husband's case has been heard. Well even that doesn't work. And all of a sudden the IRS sends out levies and liens on many of their accounts. It sends a notice to the Marin County office where it's put in a public file. And what that means is that the credit companies they look at that public file all the time. This is on the land that the husbands own in Marin County and it said if the husband

sold Lee their property the assets had to go to the IRS had the first crack on me any money that they made. And of course the credit reporting companies look at those notices and they see it and they spread the word all over because they it gets into the computerized file and if you're trying to buy a dishwasher or whatever the companies say no you don't have any credit. The iris is after you. So their whole life is messy. Well Mani is just furious with this I mean you know as I say violated law regulations and actually a court injunction. So he goes into federal court and demands damages. And there's a trial and the IRS comes into the trial and they say and I kid you not as somebody used to say maybe wish to say in the army I kid you not. The IRS came in and said well it's not our fault it's the computers fault.

And they tried to make that argument the judge in this case blew up and said you know you run the computers. It is your fault. And he actually awarded the husband some damages that's quite unusual. Now we don't know how many times that happens every year. But even assuming it's you know half of one percent of the cases get messed up that way that hundreds of thousands of people having their lives their credit their reputation seriously damaged by a computer system that's not properly designed. And we know that it's not properly designed because about the same time that it was happening. This event was happening out on California. I attended a meeting in Washington the IRS has an advisory committee. And it's one of the few public meetings

in the whole outsiders reporters anybody can attend this advisory meeting and while I was there Phil all know Hank Cox who was in charge of the computers came in and told the advisory committee we have a lot of problems with computers because we can't stop them once once the process starts we have a lot of trouble in stopping them. So the IRS admits that this faulty computer system is Jenning out. We don't know how many but probably hundreds of thousands of false incorrect notices. I mean it's really if it's some airline did that or your utility did that you know you'd be up against the wall. It's really it's really a very sobering story is especially with this twist that the IRS knew perfectly well that was having a problem with this particular computer program and it could they could get it to stop out the notices and it seemed like they didn't weren't all that concerned about trying to

get it fixed now. And you know when we've talked already about the telephone the misinformation on the telephone and the misinformation provided by the correspondence centers I obtained many many internal reports and General Accounting Office reports showing that the IRS has been aware of these problems in the correspondence and telephone offices they've been aware of it for 15 years and they haven't done anything about it. They've known it. It's been shown to them. And they they they simply don't care because you see the IRS has a mindset. Not everybody you know there are a lot of well-meaning people in the IRA trying to do a good job. But there is sort of a collective mindset in the agency of enforcement that everyone's a tax cheat and they concentrate most

of their efforts on on going after cheap. Rather than helping the compliant taxpayers the ones who may not agree with the amount of taxes they're paying everything but who pay it. And Mr. Goldberg who's the new commissioner I had an interview with him about a month ago and he said he hoped to change that mindset. I'm not sure he'll be able to but that's what he says. Do you do you think that you know if we if we could take a poll of the agents and the various staff of the IRS and we asked them Do you think that people are basically honest people are basically dishonest they would tell us they think people basically are dishonest. Did they do they think that way about the taxpayers as large. I think an awful lot of the agents who are in the collection business you know the collection side of the agency the people who go after the taxpayers who've been identified as not paying

and some of the auditors I think a lot maybe a majority of them feel that way. You have to understand that that's sort of what they see I mean they see that most of the cases coming to them. The people you know are avoiding paying their taxes. The problem is that the most of the people coming to them are in fact a minority of the American people. A very small minority because most I mean you know 85 90 percent of the American people in fact either pay or try to pay their taxes and apparently also a very large number of people. If if there's some problem for most people all it takes is one notice from the IRS and then generally they pay up and then many of them probably you know meant a fair number of the Money Magazine I understand is coming out with an article next week saying that the claims that you know that the IRS

makes on those computerized notices that they 50 percent of the time the actual claims are wrong meaning the taxpayer probably does not owe additional money right. And I mean it. It's it's I don't know why. It's really a puzzle to me why we've allowed. Well it's not only a puzzle but it is a curiosity that we've allowed just bureaucracy to prove to perform so badly. What you know given the fact that you sort of wonder if anybody ought to be the that the buck stops here people. It ought to be the Congress. And it seems that with the with the possible exception of the the taxpayer bill of rights that was passed in the eight that the Congress has done rather poorly in Washington little oversight role and it is that because the members are probably as frightened of the IRS is most of the rest of us are.

Well I think there are several forces at work that do. The fact that which cannot be disputed that the that the Congress has done a terrible job holding oversight hearings of the RS over the years. One factor which you just mentioned is fear. Many congressmen are afraid of the Irish now they have reason for that. I found evidence of at least three situations where either the IRS brought charges against a congressman who had been critical of the IRS. And I meant I mean I held oversight hearings or that information was leaked from the IRA in an attempt to destroy the political career of the three senators and the leaking of the information did in fact destroy the political careers of two of

these senators. So there is reason for fear. The second thing that were the second factor that that that sort of makes the Congress very very cautious about looking at the IRAs. One of the I mean it sounds a little cynical but when you think about I think it's right one of the major functions of a congressman or senator is to bring home. Federal projects to his his his or her district or state. And that requires the money to keep flowing into the system if you're going to get a big if a defense contractor is going to get a big contract. There's got to be enough money to pay for it and if you're going to get highways build and you know the the airport the local airport redeveloped etc. you need the box. So there is a lot of uneasiness about messing with this machine.

And even though the machine may be flawed the congressman seemed even though there's problems. Don't mess with the IRS. I mean this gets to the point where the House Ways and Means Committee which is the tax committee. Last year the House Ways and Means Committee actively tried to block and vest a Geisha of IRS corruption. I mean a lot of serious corruption in the upper ranks of the arrows by another committee. They tried to block it. So you've got fear you've got the warrior that you want the money to keep coming in because it's so important for you to give it out if you're going to get re-elected. And then the third factor in this just applies to the the members of the tax committee the members of the tax mini's have a great money making racket in the sense that every two years or

so and this is happened they can announce Well we're going to have a new tax reform bill they raise the flag of so-called tax reform when they raise that 5 What happens is corporate America Wall Street Chicago you know the big money people rush in with huge campaign contributions and they shower them on the members of the Ways and Means Committee in the Senate Finance Committee. And that's very nice you know that guarantees your reelection if you've got a big war chest nobody's going to challenge you. And so the the members of the two tax committees seem to spend most of their time holding Soco hearings on so-called tax reform and very little time on oversight where there's no you know the no campaign contributions and oversight hearings. So you know you get a real interesting combination of greed and fear. At different levels what

Congress does. Well there are some very strong words. They do a terrible job of oversight. Our guest this morning is investigative journalist David Burnham and we're talking with him about his book a law unto itself. It's about the Internal Revenue Service just published by Random House. We have a caller will take in just a moment. First here's the rundown of the programs for the next few days. Tomorrow morning at 11:00 this part of focus will be speaking with John doing is he is the author of a book entitled Our man in Panama and is the foreign editor at National Public Radio Well talk about the United States and many Well Noriega on Thursday. Denise you could Jerry in as the guest. We'll talk about her book it's entitled uncommon genius tracing the creative impulse what she did is she went out and interviewed a number of people who had received a MacArthur Fellowship is talking with them about what they do where they get their ideas trying to get a little bit better understanding of the creative process on the program Friday practical show for you at 11 o'clock and a popular guest as well Rick

Karr will be here. He's an auto mechanic his business is Rick's automotive service in Champaign and so any questions you may have on car care. Pick up the telephone and call us then. The program next week Monday I think will have a fun show at 11 o'clock we'll be speaking with Timothy Ryback about his book Rock Around the block a history of rock music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. And then next week on Tuesday we will talk a little bit about the recent East German elections and our guest will be Ralph Ruddock. He is a Fulbright scholar from East Germany who is here at the University of Illinois he's a psychologist and we talked with him some time ago about politics and all the changes sweeping his country. He had some interesting things to say he is one of a very small number of East Germans East German scholars that are here studying in the United States so he will give us some of his thoughts on this past weekend's elections in Germany. And if you have questions force of course here this morning you can telephone again our guest is investigative journalist David Byrne and we're talking about his book a law unto

itself. It is about the Internal Revenue Service. We have a local lines open the number is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We have somebody here our toll free line we will talk with them next. Good morning. Good morning. I thought you might want to trace your longer yourself. I had an experience with the IRS several years ago my husband and I had been operating two businesses together and when he died I kept on for even more years doing both of them and then suddenly decided I guess I'd give the bill to my son and his wife and let them carry on. I got into a different location. And one day a notice came from the IRS saying that I owed more taxes on what I had just paid and they'd like to do an audit. So of course we set up a time and a date and the key in the

am. My father who had been in commercial paper for many many years in Minneapolis just happened to be here at the time so he sat in with me on the interview in fact he was here when I was doing my taxes that year and gave me any advice as he often did with whatever questions I had. So the gentleman from the IRS sat down to put down notes on all my books to open my book. Please see anything in the world one day and you took down notes and without saying too much laughed said he will be hearing from me. So after a bit through the mail I got a notice that I owed the IRS over nineteen hundred dollars on the taxes. I hadn't quite paid enough. No sign of any arithmetic telling how they arrived at nineteen hundred dollars. No. No sign of anything to back up their

claim that I hadn't paid enough and I had talked to both my father who as I say was familiar with bookkeeping and banking and that kind of thing as well as talking to my lawyer. Both of them said well you know you might just as well give up before you fight the fight. Because if it's the IRS they're going to have their own way where there's any sense to it or not. And so I sat down and wrote him out a check for nineteen hundred dollars whatever it was. They said I owed even though I knew very well I should have some substantiation and figures they should have arrived at that figure from some way or another. But nothing like that. And I just didn't balk at it I went ahead and wrote him out a check send it in the mail. And after a few weeks time I got a check back from the IRS again with no sign of any reasoning. The only way that they had figured out another

figure but they included a check to me for a few hundred dollars I don't even remember that figure. But anyway they thought they owed me some money so I deposited it and said absolutely nothing about it. What I had done was when I decided to give up that to a business that I gave to my son and his wife and they were going to keep on doing the same thing in the same way. And the story that the IRS brothel was that the stuff that I gave to them that was on the shelf ready to be sold or even used in this. I owed tax on that too and my tenant Why's that then I hadn't used them the ad hadn't told them yet I didn't owe the government any of the tax that I would have gotten from the from selling at UC. Sounds valid tonight.

Well it was good but what you're saying color is that they were very arbitrary they did not provide any explanation and you think they were wrong. I know they were wrong I was. I was with you I was the a proprietor of two businesses I knew exactly what was going on and I knew that until I saw some figures I really didn't owe them any money didn't think owed him any money anyway but I'd be willing to look. They offered me no substantiation what ever. It's interesting isn't it that you didn't challenge them. I mean I think taxpayers all of them in a way because I knew that the income tax that I had sent in was correct. I had never had any in my house than either. We've never done anything that was incorrect you know why shouldn't we pay our fair share of the income tax. Running two businesses. That's OK. Expect that and did it but inordinate. I believe I know but you but you paid it. I paid it but you didn't. Did you and you didn't go to another tax preparer and say let's see challenges you didn't go on to tax court.

I talked to the lawyer who had gone over my figures and submitted them for me over his signature so that it wouldn't be just mine I always get somebody else to put the figures down you know when I go over my figures and they think that's right. So then they put their Put it down on the form and send it in. Well I think. Anyway they never gave me any substantiation for the money they sent me back to the lawyers so you shouldn't challenge it. Yes he was the one that won as well as my father who said you might just as well give it to them they're going to get it anyway why go through all the grief of trying to you know go over the figures again and say well this is right and this is right why bother with yourself I'll just give it to them. And I did that and it was a $900 that I knew or didn't know and here's the reason my son and his wife when they sold those things they were going to pay for having all of them.

There was no sense in there getting it out of me first because in the end they got paid exactly twice. You see what I did. But we didn't make any to do about it we just said OK if they're going to win in the end we will just save ourselves the trouble of going through it. You know what you should have made it to do about. Well it would have been all right but we wouldn't gotten anyplace where you might have to sometimes you went in tax court and it would've cost some money but and you were also passes and we just allow the sages you did I think there are millions of taxpayers like you. I mean it was worth the money for us to get them out of my hair. I wouldn't have wanted to go to another town and lay my books out and go through all that mess and fuss if they wanted the money. And they told me that you know that they didn't have any substantiation or they would have put it down. That was clear to me. It was clear to my father it was clear to my lawyer. That was

it and I did OK. But it's a little more fuel for your fire I think. Absolutely. Thank you Jorge I think we've had a call program. Thank you you know well Mr. Burnham in listening to the caller it just sort of jogged my memory about the point in your book where you talk about the IRS and its consideration of what's called a quote unquote return free system or this which it would operate like this basically from if this is to more adopted you would get a form in the mail from the IRS that would show it would have one number on it which would be your income and would have another number on it which would be your withholding. And basically it would either tell you we're going to send you some money back or you owe money and there be no no this business where we sit down here and fill out all the forms and send them and do that basically. The IRS would do it all and then either you would get a refund or you would get a bill which I think to a lot of people would be a pretty frightening

prospect of letting the IRS do this and never really knowing how how it is they determine what what you owed is something it is their serious consideration. Well if that seems to be on during the Reagan administration they push very hard for this and I think they determined they had to get slightly faster computers to do it. They hope that they will be in a position to calculate the the income taxes owed by 60 to 70 percent of the population within a couple of years and at that time they will go to the so-called return free system. You know and it's it's scary on a number of grounds one that any agency would have that much information about that many people so that even even they'd be in a theoretical position to do this too. It's scary because we know from

from history that they will frequently be wrong. And you know it. It's finally scary because I think a lot of Americans maybe. If I can say so without being too critical of the caller just call would just accept what came in and pay it without challenge. When would there be a mechanism if if you got the bill and you thought to yourself well this just isn't right. There would be some mechanism of challenging what the IRS said they thought you owed. Yes but because you didn't you don't have all the underlying figures and you haven't calculated it would be. I think the tendency would be just to accept it. I mean it would be even more the the woman who just called us had all the information she believed there are wrong and she didn't. You know she didn't feel it was worth it in her you know to devote her energy to challenging it so she didn't do it and if you don't have the information if

you're just sitting there with a bill that says you owe $500. I think even fewer people would challenge I mean it's a really scary thing and I think the Course also scary is that an awful lot of Americans would like that they'd say Oh that's wonderful Now I don't have to fill out a tax return. Yeah that's true. That's true. I guess I think that there would be a there would be such a hue and cry over that that you could never get it. It would never go well. We'll see when the when it comes up. My hunch is that an awful lot of you know it's it's a HUMAN thing to be lazy and all of us are lazy and filling out the tax return is such a pain in the neck. And if the IRS came and said well we'll do this for you don't worry. Just give it to me. I'm all right. I think an awful lot of people would be somewhat object strenuously but I think an awful lot of people would say terrific. You know our guest this morning is David Burnham we're talking about his book a law unto itself.

It's about the Internal Revenue Service we have about 10 minutes left we have two callers on hold that we will go right to. If you have questions for us the couple a couple of local lines open. The number is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Go to the toll free line once again for a number. Caller Hello. Hello. This is probably a little bit different. My husband and the physician and he went over into his own private practice about five years ago and he asked me to work for him and I really didn't have a lot of experience but I. Religious Lee listen to what the accountant said to do. However at that time the IRS was sending out punch cards and then the balance of payroll taxes had to be sent in quarterly. Well. Inadvertently I waited to the last minute and then I found out I didn't have the right cards so I used the wrong card. But I didn't think too much about it about two or a month later I got a notice from the IRS you're going to jail and I

don't really know it was scary and I called the accountant but I always religiously copied everything that I paid to the IRS I had a file so you know I called them up and I said you know what had happened. And right away the lady started reading something to me. It was like a robot. There will be a lien against your property she just went on and on and on. And I said she won't listen. Wait a minute lady you can't intimidate me I mean I was pretty naive probability but I said that to her. And finally she said oh well wait a minute. So then she found somebody else and she gave me to them. I told them what had happened and they said all right you write all the information and send it in to us. So I did. Finally what happened was a lady called. It was like a PR service. I couldn't believe how nice it was and she researched it through her computer and she found out that it had gone into the wrong account that the money really was

there and she transferred it out into the correct account for me. Well you were you were very lucky you are going to live at a low level of years ago. The IRS failed to print up the coupons. The thing that you just mentioned and they ran short of them and hundreds of thousands of businesses didn't have the coupons they needed to send in the right withholding employee tax thing and the IRS generated hundreds of thousands of wrongful notices and claims and penalties in the whole thing. I mean it was just awful and they lost because of it they lost a lot of revenue. I mean just because they didn't print up the right coupons. Now if your story is huge you know you think of yourself as I mean you have a happy ending. Yes. But and you think of yourself as alone but there were hundreds of

thousands probably millions of people going through the same thing because of the incompetent management at the IRS but they hadn't they didn't get the right forms out to the people at the right time. Well I felt really lucky that you know of it that it worked out that way but I also when I did tell the story to another person we have had as a consultant that I just said to this person I'm not going to be intimidated by you he just looked at me like how could you say that. But that I'm glad it worked out the way it. Yes thank you. OK let's go. Thank you very much let's go in here to another call good line one. Hello. Yes there's a whole category that you haven't talked about yet you talk about bureaucratic incompetency and bureaucratic speak but what about the use of the IRS as a political weapon. I've been thinking. Nixon used to send me a list of for other yeah other than just amusement so I listen to your your right spin on that I've been thinking about that. The book has three chapters on the misuse of the IRS for political purposes.

Nixon got all the blame. However FDR was worse. LBJ was bad. Kennedy was bad Herbert Hoover used it for that. Virtually every president has used the IRS to go after political enemies and addition the IRS itself has its own agenda. It has tried to stop the development of public interest law firms it tried to slow down the development of the civil rights movement. It got very upset with the Communist Party activities and used the tax laws in a completely prejudicial and improper manner. So it is a very very political and strawman and it is not just Richard Nixon. And I have you know a whole range of stories beginning with Herbert Hoover and going through President Reagan where the IRS has been used improperly for political purposes. And I think it's really it's I think it's it's sort of incredible enough

the way that presidents presidential administrations have used it and in fact some powerful members of Congress but the idea that that middle management people within the IRS should be pursuing their own political agendas and using this organization to to lean on groups that they didn't like. It's even it's even more kind of mind boggling. It is. The I mean during the Kennedy administration for example the IRA started auditing and harassing the National Council of Churches for the civil rights activities. I don't think that John F. Kennedy asked them to do that. They also started operating Hodding Carter owned a newspaper in Mississippi that had the outrageous temerity to say that the South was going to have to live with the Supreme Court decision on school desegregation. They started operating individual civil rights workers around the south. And as I say this was not something initiated by JFK. This was the

sort of the visceral upset of the agency toward these groups and that kind of thing you seen right into the Reagan administration. I have one example where a group of high school science teachers in the Midwest and many many Minnesota wanted to have a form an organization to promote the idea of Darwinism of evolution and the group is headed by a Catholic nun who taught in Sister Lucy knoll who taught and I broke a school and there was a high school science teacher in a private school science teacher and they were all in this together for evolution the controversial idea of evolution. They got a lot of back during the Reagan administration saying are you going to give equal time to the creationist point of view we're going to give equal you know who are you to say Darwin's right. And the whole other bunch of impertinent questions they protested and managed to get their tax exemption anyway. What is interesting that this happened you know again I don't think President Reagan ordered

Peter Brock who is the man who signed this letter in the IRA's to do this. I think that the latter you know happened to reflect his personal views Peter Ross's personal views and he knew that the Reagan session was friendly toward the conservative right. And many of those people were creationists. And he felt he could use the power of the IRS to advance his personal religious views and he did so. When trying to squeeze one more person in here before we have to finish it we'll go here to line number two. I'll have to ask you though if you can make your question brief here. Ok it's very brief. OK I tuned in late so maybe you've already answered this question. I was wondering have you personally ever had a bad experience with the IRS. You know either as a private citizen or maybe you were one's employee. No I'm not I'm a working journalist. I have not been audited. It's interesting almost everybody I've talked to about my book and interviewing the book has asked that question is made a little joke.

I hope you have your affairs in order do you have a good accountant. You know I think it's an interesting fact that American people think that there was an example where the Reader's Digest. Some critical stories about the IRS and the IRS came after the Reader's Digest. So it happened I don't think it will happen with me because I as I say I've been a working journalist most of my income is on a W2 form and you know it's sort of routine and I think they have an awful lot of trouble making a federal case out of my my personal financial affairs. What kind of things do you suggest in terms of a reform of the IRS or perhaps perhaps just what it needs is greater oversight. Well we need greater oversight but I have thought of in the last few months been talking to a lot of people and I've added some things I think I've decided we need a national commission the formation of a national commission to try to figure out a

way to simplify the tax law the law is so complicated that it gives individual agents just arbitrary power over the individual taxpayer. When you have a situation where nobody understands the law you don't have a you know you don't have this isn't a tax system of law it's a tax system of individuals and. We're not supposed to work that way we're supposed to understand so we got to simplify the tax law. I think we could take tax exemption out of the IRS and put it in an independent commission and make it totally public. I think we might take the criminal investigating arm of the IRS out and put it in the Justice Department. That might change the the IRS is sort of mindset toward law and order mindset it's you know get get the tax cheat mindset. If we took the Criminal Division out of the IRA so I've got a number of things I think we could do. Well we'll have to leave it at that. Your book is very fascinating and also kind of disquieting but fascinating nonetheless. Again the book we're talking about is a law unto

itself power politics and the IRS David Burnham is the author and Random House is the publisher. Thank you very much Mr. Burnham for talking with interest. Nice to talk to you. Thank you.