THE IRS STRIKES-MAKING INCOMPETENT ASSESSMENTS

HON. GEORGE HANSEN

OF IDAHO

IN THE ROUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Monday, April 5, 1982

• Mr. HANSEN of Idaho. Mr. Speak. er, another example of the heavy. handed and abusive tactics of the Internal Revenue Service in their tax collection practices-which would be stopped by passage of H.R. 4931, the Taxpayer Protection Act (TPA)-is the following letter I received from a

tax preparer in the Eastern States. DEAR SIR: Please allow me to thank you for your efforts to tame the IRS, even à little bit. I know you have plenty of materi al to work on, but there is one thing I have not ever noted. That is the thousands of taxpayers who get a bill from the IRS and immediately grab their check book and pay it, without ever questioning the accuracy of the bill.

It has been the experience of our office that ten to fifteen percent of these bills are incorrect. In fact, we had a client who did Just that and paid the IRS collector $515. (At the time, the IRS owed this taxpayer $3.10). It took us seven years, from 1967 to 1974, to get this money back. We are still

trying to get the interest.

I wonder how long the American people are going to suffer from the arrogance, incompetence, and specious interpretations of IRS agents.

Mr. Hansen, allow me to thank you again for all you have done and hope to do, but all you can accomplish as long as we have this progressive Income tax and the IRS is to apply Band-aids to a cancer.

Of course, the government has to raise money by taxes but, in my opinion, the only nearly fair tax would be a national sales tax with exemptions for staple food and medicine.

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THE IRS STRIKES WITH XRATED BEHAVIOR

HON. GEORGE HANSEN

OF IDAHO

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Wednesday, April 21, 1982

Mr. HANSEN of Idaho. Mr. Speaker. I have been outraged by the overzealous practices of the Internal Revenue Service in their tax collection practices. Passage of my bill H.R. 4931, the Taxpayer Protection Act (TPA), will correct these overzealous actions and restore the public's confidence in our voluntary tax system.

The integrity of our tax system is often dependent upon the acts of its representatives or agents. Some examples of IRS agents' activities that damage this integrity and which management does not seem prone to root out have been made public in the press, whether it is the "mooning" of certain IRS agents as recently reported in the media or the following account of what appears to be a whole nest of "kinky" agents.

[From the New York Post, Oct. 28, 19811
COPS SMASH KINKY IRS SEX RING
(By Mike Pearl, Charles Lachman and
George Carpozi)

A phantom movie producer" who has plagued the metropolitan area for more than six years by spanking thousands of college coeds in a phony search for the perfect "screamer," was unmasked yesterday as a Manhattan IRS collector.

Authorities suspect a number of other tax agents are involved in the widespread racket that produced tens of thousands of color photographs of the spankings he adminis tered.

April 21, 1982

N.J

He was charged with victimizing women undergraduates from NYU, CCNY, Columbia, Hofstra, and other colleges by inviting them for auditions" in a studio he maintained on West 56th Street.

Last night. Davidson phoned a doleful plea to his home for bail money. His wife's angry response, according to a DA's source, was:

"I'm not getting you out on bail. I'm not coming to pick you up."

A DA's investigator told the The Post that Davidson's duties as a tax agent enable him. to carry on the scam

A 22 year old NYU student. Karen Car reras, played detective and cracked the case. Miss Carreras, who works in the student employment office, tumbled onto the scam after Davidson listed his phony movie jobs and her fellow students complained.

"He seemed to get off on the spankings," the DA's investigator said, "He acted out elaborate fantasies. There were many sexual overtones, but so far we have no direct evidence of any overt sex."

However, he did have one "hangup," ac cording to the prober.

"He always asked the girl afterward whether she got any sexual gratification from the spanking."

Davidson had what the investigator termed "way-out Victorian techniques."

"The girls, who were always topless, were always give a red micro-mini-skirt to wear, a straw boater's hat, and Peter Pan collar. He administered 25 spanks to each of his movie

hopefuls, who really believed he was going to sign them to a film contract if they gave him the screams he wanted to hear. "He would put the girls across his knee, lift their miniskirts, and slap their butocks until they were screaming for mercy." Davidson recorded all the sounds In addition to filming the "auditions," according to the DA's man.

The DA's office had heard bits and pieces about the phoney movie producer since 1975, but couldn't turn up leads on him.

Then two weeks ago-after an NYU girl answered the audition call-she went to Morgenthau's office and told her story to Assistant DA Linda Fairstein, head of the Sex Crimes Unit.

With a search warrant, detectives entered Davidson's office and secreted a television camera in the false ceiling. While there, the probers culled office records and found lists of girls who had been given "auditions."

The women who complained, returned to the studio on Miss Fairstein's instructions, stepped into the paraphernalia Davidson supplied, and let herself be spanked-giving an Academy Award performance with her screams.

So far, from the names that came into their possession, the DA's probers have found 20 young women who admitted they were victimized by Davidson.

"We believe there are thousands of others," said Miss Fairstein. "Now that the story is out, we expect those who were too ashamed to come forward and complain, will do so at last.

The investigator who spoke with The Post shook his head.

"Would you believe the irony in this whole thing is that none of the girls had anything bad to say about Davidson for the spankings he gave them? They were merely angry because he didn't pay them.".

April 21, 1982

THE IRS STRIKES-WITH

VIOLENCE

HON. GEORGE HANSEN

OF IDAHO

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Wednesday, April 21, 1982

• Mr. HANSEN of Idaho. Mr. Speaker, another example of the heavyhanded and abusive tactics of the Internal Revenue Service in their tax collection practices, which would be stopped by passage of H.R. 4931, the Protection Taxpayer Act-TPA-is their use of violence in disregarding any lawful procedures, constitutional rights, or basic decency and respect which should be extended to all citi

The IRS has been known to hit an entire community with heavily

armed strike force or even to use a force of 40 armed men against 1 nonviolent Amish individual.

The following account is one of many where violent measures have been used to inflict IRS demands upon the public.

In 1977, Mons and Stephen Oliver of Fairbanks, Alaska, received notification from the Internal Revenue Service Regional Office in Ogden, Utah, that they owed the IRS $3,300. No explanation of how this sum was determined accompanied the bill. The Olivers, while examining the IRS bill, discovered an error in arithmetic, so they Wrote to the IRS and pointed out the misLake.

IRS bureaucrats made no response at first, but several months later the IRS informed the Olivers that they now owed $4,700, again falling-or refusing-to state how this figure was selected. The Olivera, who have always filed their income tax returns, continued to write to various IRS officials but received no adequate explanation.

By February 1979, the IRS had grown tired of the "obstinate" Olivers who refused

to comply with the manifestly arbitrary as sessment of the IRS. During this time the IRS changed its mind again and decided that the correct amount of taxes owed was $4,200. Then the agency proceeded to place a levy on Stephen Oliver's wages, which reduced the Olivers' income below the poverty level.

On August 1, 1979, the Olivers were informed that they now owed $9,600 in back taxes. That same morning. Stephen and Mona Oliver drove to Fairbanks federal building on business relating to the IRS. According to Mona Oliver, she and her hus band were on the top floor of the federal building when "someone came up and said, They're towing away your car outside!' We were in such a hurry that we didn't even wait for the elevator... we ran down the stairs."

The Olivers found their car hitched to a tow truck. It had been towed off of the public street in front of the federal building and into the building's parking lot.

"I was upset, I was shaking. There must have been ten IRS agents around it (the car). I said, 'Is it all right if we remove our personal belongings?" They said that was all right, so we started to take our things out of the car. I was so close to breaking into tears, but that was the last thing that I wanted to do in front of them," Mrs. Oliver said.

The Olivers claim that they were never notified by the IRS that their property was going to be seized. In any event it is unusual and perhaps foolish to place a levy on a person's wages and then seize his only means of transportation to work.

As she was unloading her belongings, Mrs. Oliver thought to herself, "Where are they taking my car? If they're taking my car somewhere, I want to know where."

She said, "So then I just sat down on the seat, closed the door, and locked it."

Stephen Oliver quickly joined her in their small dilapidated Volkswagen. He sat in the driver's seat and locked his door too.

This defiance of the IRS infuriated the agents, who began yelling threats and warnings at the Olivers. IRS agenta quickly sum moned the city police to help them against the unarmed Olivers and from the rapidly gathering crowd of onlookers.

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The operator of the truck towing the Ollvers' Volkswagen was shaken when he learned that the IRS agents did not have a court order allowing them to seize the car. The driver uncoupled his truck from the Olivers' car and left. The IRS agents immediately surrounded the Volkswagen with ve hicles of their own. Members of the large group of bystanders sympathetic to the Ollvers plight suggested that they might remove the IRS vehicles and set the Olivers free. Stephen Oliver vetoed the idea. Minutes later his car was chained to an IRS agent's jeep.

Por seven hours the determined Olivers held their position inside their car until the IRS secured a search warrant from a magistrate brought in by the IRS specifically for that purpose. (It is difficult to imagine what the IRS was "searching" for in the Olivers' car.)

"With no warning at all, they began smashing the windows with billy clubs," Mons Oliver said. "I saw them start on the driver's side; my husband's arm was right up against the glass. I thought, If I put my hand up against the window they'll see it and won't break the glass. But they smashed the window right into my hand, she said.

After the IRS agents had hurled Stephen from the car, they went after Mona. Several agents dragged her across the broken glass and shoved her onto the pavement, leaving her bruised and bleeding. Even under the authority of a search warrant, what these IRS ruffians did is tantamount to assault and battery. These agents seem to have knowingly committed the crime of assault by using excessive force against non-crimi nal, nonviolent citizens in a civil matter. A government-owned tow truck soon whisked the car away. The next day the IRS informed the Olivers that they now owed "only" $4.010.

On August 23, 1979, the Olivers' Volkswagen was auctioned for $500. The crowd of protesters who had gathered outside the building where the auction took place was photographed by IRS agents. License-plate numbers of those at the rally were taken down.●

Hallie Snyder walked across the living room toward the door, it was flung open by & man carrying a highpowered automatic rifle. Eight men, all heavily armed, burst into the room with weapons pointed and ready to fire.

Next door, James Dwight Snyder was busy at his saw cutting out a set of custom-made cabinets. He heard the door to his shop swing open and turned his head instinctively. "Freeze!" someone shouted. Snyder looked down at the floor in front of the entry to his shop. Several men carrying M16's and submachine guns lay in the prone position with their weapons aimed at Snyder.

Outside, in front of Snyder's shop, State policemen had blocked off the road. Pederal marshals and IRS special agents armed with M16's had surrounded the Snyder property. More than 30 men had just captured the unarmed Snyder family.

James Dwight Snyder is no criminal. He has no criminal record and has never been accused of a crime, and neither has his wife.

In fact, the IRS agents who attacked Snyder and his family knew this. The Internal Revenue Service had not

E 1686

come to arrest Snyder, but to seize his property for his alleged failure to pay income taxes in 1971 and 1972. Whether or not Snyder actually owes the money claimed by the IRS has not yet been decided. At the time of this writing, Snyder has two cases pending in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Snyders had no idea that the IRS was going to grab their property.

About 10 of the IRS agents immediately began tagging various household goods, equipment in Snyder's workshop, vehicles, a tractor, and numerous other items belonging to Snyder. (They even tagged Snyder's mother's pickup truck.) The 20 remaining storm troopers camped around the edge of the Snyder property keeping an eye on Snyder, his wife, and their daughter "preventing them from interfering in the seizure of Federal property." Late that afternoon the IRS brought in a moving van and three wreckers and proceeded to haul their loot away.

All of this done without a search warrant. Because Snyder had committed no crime-indeed, the IRS would not accuse him of a crime because this would have given Snyder the opportunity to a trial by jury-a search war rant could not be issued. The IRS.

however, got around this obstacle by a technicality called a writ of entry. This order of entry, along with section 6331 of the IRS Code, allows the IRS to seize, by force, a citizen's property without due process of the law. The IRS seized thousands of dollars' worth of property from the Snyders and sold some of it at public auction.

The Snyder case dramatically demonstrates the police-state power and mentality of the IRS. An Internal Revenue Service official in Baltimore who was asked to explain why the IRS sent in more than 30 armed men stated, "When resistance is anticipated, steps are taken to assure the safety of the IRS officials involved."

Yet Snyder, a father of three who has never had as much as a traffic ticket, a member of the Dunkard Brethren Church, a fundamentalist group that, like his Amish neighbors, hews to ideals of pacifism, hard work, family values and plain living and frowns on television, movies and similar worldly diversions, was considered such a threat to require more than 30 armed men, without a search warrant, to illegally seize his humble possessions.

April 21, 1982

THE IRS STRIKES-MUSCLING
THE MIDDLE CLASS
HON. GEORGE HANSEN

OF IDAHO

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Wednesday, April 21, 1982

• Mr. HANSEN of Idaho. Mr. Speaker, another example of the heavyhanded and abusive tactics of the Internal Revenue Service in their tax collection practices, which would be stopped by passage of H.R. 4931, the Taxpayer Protection Act (TPA) is the following letter I received from a disgruntled accountant in the Northeast:

DEAR SIR. I would like to commend you for the initiative you are taking by introducing the Taxpayer Protection Act (H.R. 4931). Of all the problems which face legislators today, few if any, represent such a direct contradiction to the nature of our country and the intent of our Constitution than the Illegal powers granted to and/or established by the Internal Revenue Service. This power, together with the overwhelming complexity of our laws, gives the IRS virtually total unencumbered ability to interpret a taxpayer's liability and enforce

collection in any way it (the IRS) chooses. My major, in college, was accounting and I worked in public accounting for about six years. I have prepared hundreds of tax returns and have had encounters with the IRS at various levels and for various reasons during those years. I could relate to you stories known to me, because of my professional interesta, during that time. However, I am certain that you know these same stories as well as L, if not better. There have been newspaper and magazine articles, books and television documentaries on the subject. So the question is: Why have "we the people" allowed this to go on for so long? It should suffice to say that my empathy for the taxpayer and disdain for the system of tax col. lection precluded me, ethically, philosophi cally, morally, and emotionally, from taking part in this process. I no longer work in the field of public accounting. However, sometimes I feel guilty for abandoning the taxpayer and leaving him one less advocate. Therefore, I will throw caution to the wind (for our sake) and allow you to use this letter, in anyway, if you feel that it could be of some benefit.

The middle class, of which I am a member, the W-2 wage earner bears the brunt of this burden and exploitation. We support the country with our taxes and are the target of the greatest number of audita

made by the IRS. Strangely enough, we are the least likely to cheat on our taxes be cause the vehicles for cheating are not available to us. However, the middle class provides the most efficient means for the IRS to enforce collection through its use of intimidation. Because the middle class comprises the largest block of taxpayers, we provide tremendous "word-of mouth adver tising for the IRS. This is not conjecture or theory. While I was in public accounting. attending tax seminars, I listened to IRS Directors explain this principle of effective, low cost, high benefit, efficient tax collec tion. The IRS was, and probably still is. proud of this technique. However, my cli ents, at that time, were frustrated and almost paranoid. I learned, first hand, that if this country ever has another major revolution it will be the middle class in a tax revolt. God help us! It isn't necessary. It's our country, our laws, our taxes. Isn't it?

In conclusion, Congressman Hansen, 1 support you and urge you to continue to wards your goals of tax collection reform and tax reform in general. I am confident that you can only receive tremendous public support. This issue transcends all partisan affiliations for any person who calls himself a citizen of the United States. It is the duty of all elected representatives to tackle these difficult issues. Please, make our system work!

THE IRS STRIKES AND THE RULES KEEP CHANGING

HON. GEORGE HANSEN

OF IDARO

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Wednesday, April 21, 1982

Mr. HANSEN of Idaho. Mr. Speaker, another example of the heavy. handed and abusive tactics of the Internal Revenue Service in their tax collection practices which would be stopped by passage of H.R. 4931, the Taxpayer Protection Act (TPA) is the

following letter I received from a citizen in Pennsylvania.

Dear Sir Why should we taxpayers have to combat the IRS as though they were an enemy? They are not. They must obey the rules the same as anyone else. Rules that Congressmen, like you, lay down in the House.

I am a Kings Pointer, class of 1942, and I am thoroughly familiar with "Rules and Regulations." When the rules are laid down, they go for "all hands" which includes the admirals.

The IRS has just tried their "hassle" act on my 1979 tax return. I promptly wrote back, quoting their rules and regulations, and told them "You are in error!" Scare me?

No way! I've already faced death many times in torpedoings, bombings, strafings, and worse through the eye of two hurri

canes.

1 am, however, fed up with the way they change the rules month by month. You Congressmen are going to have to lay down rules for them to abide by and set up deflnite prison terms if they fail to obey the rules. No wrist slaps. No dismissals. Prison terms like everyone else gets when they disobey.

Good luck in your fight. I am with you all the way.

April 21, 1982

HON. GEORGE HANSEN

OF IDAHO

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Wednesday, April 21, 1982

• Mr. HANSEN of Idaho. Mr. Speaker, another example of the heavyhanded and abusive tactics of the Internal Revenue Service in their tax collection practices which would be stopped by passage of H.R. 4931, the Taxpayer Protection Act (TPA), is the following story wherein the IRS arbitrarily drew an unauthorized check on a taxpayer's account of $39.65. This citizen decided to fight the illegal practice, and as all too often happens, be lost-In this case his life.

There are many episodes involving death attributed to the strain of dealing with the IRS but the facts outlined in this account make it especially tragic.

DONALD MCGRATH

Donald McGrath did not believe that he owed the IRS $39.65. He wrote to them and told them so. He asked to have an Internal Revenue Service official meet with him and explain to him why he owed thirty-nine dollars and change. The IRS never did respond.

According to McGrath, "Sensing that the IRS may try to implement a seizure on my account, I wrote to the bank and asked them not to honor any IRS demands other than by my consent or an order issued from a competent court. I then received a note from the bank stating that they... would honor an IRB levy.... Shortly I received another letter from the bank stating that they had turned my money over to Mr.

-

Thoen of the IRS and sent me a canceled check they had forged on my account ($39.65)."

It was a small sum, but Mr. McGrath was furious. Donald McGrath, crop duster and farmer, acting as his own attorney, filed a claim against his bank in district court.

In the meantime, McGrath agreed to pay half of a $3,000 loan he had taken out with his bank to purchase combine, but, because of displeasure with the bank over the IRS Incident, he refused to pay the remainder until the courts made a decision on the levy made by the IRS. The battle in the local courts between McGrath and his bank and the IRS raged on for months until Tuesday, July 29, 1980. when an order to seize McGrath's combine was issued by a local court.

The Grand Forks, Minnesota, Herald car ried the following account of the next fateful day.

"The incident occurred after Schroeder, Lt. Larry Bangle and Sheriff Deputy Robert Rost escorted an implement dealer's truck to a farm field where McGrath's combine was located. Officers had served notice on McGrath Tuesday warning him that they intended to seize the vehicle.

Sheriff Taylor said the deputies arrived at the field about 11:30 am. and were told by someone on the site that McGrath had said not to move the combine because he was coming back with a gun. Taylor said the person was not a member of the McGrath family."

The combine was picked up and sheriff's vehicles escorted it toward Grand Forks on County Road 4 with one car heading the entourage and another behind.

Taylor said McGrath's car approached the group from the rear when they were less than two miles from Grand Forks and passed one car and the truck with the combine, cutting in front of the two vehicles.

McGrath, his wife and son were in the car. McGrath jumped out and words were ex

E 1675

changed. Taylor said. He said one sheriff's car pulled in front and blocked the road, warning McGrath on his loudspeaker that they were from the sheriff's department and that he was under arrest and should drop his weapon. The trucker towing the combine pulled into a ditch.

Taylor said McGrath got in his car, which drove straight toward the sheriff's car. His son was driving while McGrath leaned out of the passenger's side window with a pistol. A number of shots were exchanged between McGrath and Schroeder, Taylor said, and the flurry ended when McGrath was shot [in the head) through the windshield with a 12 gauge shotgun. Schroeder was the only one from the department to fire. [The police report admits that Schroeder many have fired first McGrath was the only person injured in the foray.]

Taylor said that McGrath, 51, appeared to be the only one in the car who fired at officers. (It is far from clear that McGrath was actually firing at the officers since his bul lets only hit the tire of the other car.]

The sheriff said McGrath apparently has no criminal record.

McGrath was taken to the hospital in critical condition. His son, who had driven McGrath's car during the incident, was charged with attempted murder. Mrs. McGrath was charged with being an accomplice to attempted murder-even though she was merely riding in the back seat of the car when her husband was shot.

A week later, Donald McGrath died from extensive brain damage he suffered as a result of "a shotgun would to the head and massive loss of blood leading to shock from the time he was injured until he received medical care." All of this stemming from a disagreement over $39 65-arbitrarily assessed and arbitrarily collected.

IRS

DEMANDS

IRS DEMANDS-PAY UP OR ELSE

HON. GEORGE HANSEN

OF IDAHO

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Saturday, November 21, 1981 • Mr. HANSEN of Idaho. Mr. Speaker, several months ago, Mr. Ira Rosen, a CBS-TV News associate producer for the program "60 Minutes" came to my office to verify or challenge the findings of Internal Revenue Service abuses revealed in my recently published book.

This publication by Simon & Schuster, entitled "How the IRS Seizes Your Dollars and How To Fight Back" was released in April 1981 and draws from several large file drawers of documents and testimony collected from frustrated Government employ. ees and indignant citizens."

com

The book was written as a result of considerable research, data-collection and ad hoc hearings accumulated for presentation to congressional mittee hearings and investigators, and to the Justice Department and IRS officials; and was finally published to better achieve this purpose through an expanded public information program calling for needed reform.

Mr. Rosen informed me that IRS and congressional committee staff rejected my contentions as "never happening" or "no longer happening." He wanted to know whether I could prove otherwise. Here we were with the pious, never-do-wrong bureaucrats sitting in front of the innocent-looking. but locked agency door challenging anyone to prove that they are harbor ing a hidden stable of man-eating fiscal alligators.

Well, they are doing just that, and I provided the documents and proof, with assistance from other concerned people, to convince "60 Minutes" they had a reliable story to tell on the abusive behavior of the IRS.

Many taxpayers are suffering at the hands of the IRS. Unfortunately, however, Congressmen, Government executives, and judges can also be audited, investigated, and intimidated without good cause, as can people in the media. Thus, a fearsome creature has been created which too many want to avoid tangling with. But the awesome Powers of the IRS, not only to act under the law, but to act above the law, must finally be curtailed by Congress made to realize that they have more to fear from their unhappy constituents. than they do from the self-serving intimidating ways of the IRS

The following transcript (Vol. XIV, No. 7) of the November 15, 1981, "60 Minutes" program entitled "Pay Up or Else" is included here for the benefit of my colleagues and all citizens interested in knowing what the IRS is doing that is causing such a ground swell of complaints among Americans everywhere:

AUDIT THE TAX MAN

CHARLES SHEPKE The IRS is probably the most pernicious organization that the Pederal Government, our legislators, have ever created. And if I had to parallel it with any other kind of organization in the world, I would parallel it with the KGB, probably the Gestapo.

MORLEY SAFER: We talked to a revenue agent still working for the IRS and four other agents who recently left the service. Jack Elliott was an agent for the IRS for more than twleve years. Gary Dutloff left after seven years. Sharon Fields resigned after six years. Bob Braun isstill a working revenue agent in a Pontiac, Michigan office. And Charles Shefke who quit he says be cause he, like the others, was being asked to intimidate relatively innocent small fry. CHARLES SHEFKE The poor taxpayer who wants to come up and be up front and tell you his story and tell you what's wrong literally exposes himself to getting the worst

treatment that IRS can lay on him.

GARY DUTLOFF. If the revenue agent wants to, he or she can attach any property publicly available belonging to the taxpayer who is more than ten days delinquent in paying the taxes.

SAFER: So, in effect, does not need a warrant? DUTLOPT. Does not need a warrant, does not need to see a judge.

BoB BRAUN: The revenue officer is essentially, when it comes down to a bottom line on it, a prosecutor, a judge, and a jury, and then he's the cop that goes out and executes it also.

Over a period of months, I continued to provide documents and witnesses and interviews, and to validate information to assist an exhaustive effort by Mr. Rosen and "60 Minutes" host Morley Safer to achieve maximum credibility. This unusually painstaking exercise in accuracy become necessary because of the very nature of the IRS itself, its demonstrated ability to re- SHEPKE Justice Marshall said that the taliate against its critics, no matter power to tax includes the power to destroy how powerful, and actual threats of and we enforce the tax laws and we go out such retaliation from IRS officials and and destroy people. We literally destroy their life, their livelihood, everything. other defenders in certain staff post-SAFER: That almost happened to this man, tions in the Congress. Maurice Bishop, owner of All-Time Pest Control of Benton Harbor, Michigan. The IRS made an agreement with him under which he was to pay off his forty thousand dollar tax debt over a two year period. Bishop was paying on schedule and one day the IRS walked into his office and he says, like skilled shakedown artists, demanded the entire amount in cash there and then. MAURICE BISHOP. He took his finger and struck it in my chest.

The program resulting was good in its accuracy and its confirmation by reliable people, both inside and outside the agency, of scandalous abuse of citizens at all levels in IRS tax collection practices. However, the resulting program, for the same reason, was so restrictive that the full magnitude of IRS abuses remained untold. Hope fully, this can be more adequately done in the days ahead.

SAFE: You mean he was doing that sort of thing?

OR

November 21, 1981

ELSE

some

BISHOP: They wanted to throw fear into

the community. They did, because I told ev erybody I came in contact what was happen ing with me and the IRS.

SKEPKE The revenue officer on the front

line can go out and do that to people and in point of fact, if he's the kind of revenue of ficer they want, that's what he will do. They do want to intimidate the American people. They do want to scare them.

BISHOP: At one point I thought about leaving the country. I used to get up and walk the floor at night because I could see ever since I left Detroit in 1958 I worked about eighty to a hundred hours a week. and I'm going to, they're going to destroy all of this for me, and I have no way to. what could I do if they took my business and sold it? I had a family involved there, the people that are working for us are involved, the people that we owe, they would have all been losers. That's why I couldn't understand why they did what they done and I never will live long enough to understand that.

-SAFER: Why such brutish behavior when the IRS had already made an agreement with Bishop to pay off his tax debt? An internal IRS memorandum, for example, shows the kind of pressure that is exerted on its men in the field. Prom Manchester, New Hampshire-"look over your inventory select one good taxpayer account for seizure action. A Grand Jury in Fort Worth recently indicted two IRS officers on charges of falsifying nearly two hundred federal tax records in order to meet office production quotas

You still work for the IRS, Bob?
BOB BRAUN: I do.

SAFER: Is all this familiar stuff to you?
BRAUN: Absolutely.

SAFER: Does it still go on?

BRAUN: To a very great extent, yes. The, the whole idea of things being done for their statistics, for the number. If you want to move ahead, and go into management which supposedly where all good revenue officers are supposed to wish to be, the way to get there is to have a good track record in seizures

GARY DUTLOFF. Eighty percent to eighty five percent of the management meetings would deal with comparative statistics. Each manager would wear those statistics on their, on their sleeve.

CHARLES SHEPKE In all the time I was in the service, I probably made fifty or sixty seizures. I can think of only two cases where a seizure was really warranted. And in point of fact, had I not seized the property, had I given the taxpayer an opportunity to pay the taxes, we would have collected more than I got in the seizure.