[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 44 (Tuesday, April 15, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3195-S3196]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 TAX RELIEF, TAX REFORM, AND IRS REFORM

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, an estimated 30 million taxpayers will file 
their Federal income tax returns today. They will be among the more 
than 100 million households filing returns so far this year.
  Most of these households do not have charitable feelings about the 
process to which their Government has just subjected them.
  Today, tax day, is the right day to call for tax relief, tax reform, 
and reform of the Internal Revenue Service.
  The Tax Foundation has announced today that tax freedom day for 1997 
will be May 9--128 days into the year and later than it has ever been 
in our taxpaying history.
  Mr. President, our colleague, the senior Senator from West Virginia 
[Mr. Byrd], is a student of classical history. I read recently that 
subjects in some of

[[Page S3196]]

the outer provinces of the Roman Empire stirred up civil unrest when 
Roman plus local taxation reached an estimated 25 percent of their 
income.
  Today, the typical American family of four pays 38 percent of its 
income in taxes at all levels--working 3 hours of every 8-hour day just 
to pay taxes.
  Tax-and-spend liberals don't like it when taxpayers are reminded that 
it is the taxpayer's money--not the Government's --that is taken in 
taxes.
  I continue to support reasonable, fair tax relief that is pro-family 
and pro-economic growth.
  Among other efforts, today, I am joining again as an original 
cosponsor, with Senator Ashcroft, of the Working Americans Wage 
Restoration Act.
  American wage-earners are double taxed. They pay Social Security 
taxes and income taxes twice on the same wages. The least they deserve 
to an above-the-line deduction against their income taxes for the taxes 
they pay into Social Security.
  Too often within government, common sense is the least common kind of 
sense.
  The Ashcroft-Craig bill would be one important step in the right 
direction.
  American workers and their families need tax relief as soon as we can 
enact it. They are also clamoring for fundamental tax reform.
  Compliance with the current Federal income tax system costs 5.4 
billion hours a year and $200 billion--$700 for every man, woman, and 
child in America.
  The IRS publishes 480 different tax forms, and another 280 forms to 
explain the first 480 forms.
  If laid end-to-end, the 8 billion pages of instructions sent out by 
the IRS every year would circle the Earth 28 times.
  The Internal Revenue Code is too complex, produces arbitrary results, 
and is far too involved in social engineering.
  It is costing the Government the trust and confidence of the American 
people.
  That's why Senator Shelby and I will reintroduce the Freedom and 
Fairness Restoration Act--the flat tax bill--in the coming weeks.
  Our bill would create a single, flat, tax rate of 17 percent. 
Families of modest and middle-class means would be protected--by a 
personal exemption amounting to $33,800 for a family of four.
  A fair, flat tax system would reward work, promote savings and 
economic growth, and increase willing compliance with the law. As much 
as Americans distrust the tax laws, they fear the tax collector who 
enforces them.
  Small wonder: Drug dealers, child molesters, and organized crime hit 
men have more legal rights than an average taxpayer whom the IRS 
suspects of underpaying his or her taxes.
  Blatant disregard for individuals' rights has all been in pursuit of 
one goal: Get the money.
  An ever-growing Federal Government, with its voracious appetite for 
taxpayers' hard-earned dollars, has led Congresses dominated for 
decades by tax-and-spend liberals to expand the powers of the Internal 
Revenue Service and allow the agency to ignore the due process of law 
protections to which American citizens otherwise have been entitled.
  Americans expect to enjoy due process of the law as one of their 
fundamental rights. But that's not the case when you're dealing with 
the IRS.
  Most of the time, if a criminal suspect is not publicly attracting 
the attention of a law enforcement officer, no one from the 
government--from the FBI to the local sheriff--can search their home or 
seize their property without a warrant from an impartial court, based 
upon a showing of probable cause.
  But if the IRS thinks someone has underpaid their taxes, it can seize 
cars and freeze bank accounts on its own authority--without obtaining 
any kind of impartial, prior approval.
  It can consider the taxpayer guilty until proven innocent. It can 
impose costly penalties until the taxpayer--sometimes after years of 
court proceedings--conclusively proves they did nothing wrong.
  So-called ``horror stories'' about the IRS are multiplying. Sometimes 
the problem is brought on by a Tax Code that is too complicated even 
for the IRS to understand. Sometimes the problem is with IRS agents who 
act outside the law. And sometimes, it happens when IRS officials push 
to the limit the legal powers they've been granted by past Congresses 
and Presidents. In any case, there's never an excuse for such behavior.
  Congress is now investigating these incidents. We are working to make 
the IRS more accountable and the process fairer.
  One of these efforts will take a major step closer to becoming law 
today--S. 522, the ``anti-snooping'' bill introduced by Senator 
Coverdell. I am proud to be a cosponsor.
  This bill will clamp down on rogue IRS agents and put a stop to the 
unauthorized inspection of taxpayers' information. Years into the age 
of the computer, this is overdue. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
  Congress never should have granted powers to the IRS that allow it--
that, in fact, have encouraged it--to trample the due process rights 
that all Americans should enjoy.
  Criminal activity by individual, rogue IRS agents should not be 
hidden behind a shield of sovereign immunity.
  We will pass the anti-snooping bill today. It is one small part of a 
larger reform package that still needs to be passed.
  Many of the other needed reforms are included in another of Senator 
Coverdell's bills, S. 365, the IRS Accountability Act. I am also proud 
to be a cosponsor of that bill, as well.
  No people can remain free, or their government effective, if they do 
not display trust and confidence in each other.
  Yet America's tax system increasingly eats like a corrosive acid at 
these very bonds of support and legitimacy.
  I am committed to the three-step program necessary to restore 
fairness to the tax system and trust to the people:
  Pro-family, pro-growth tax relief; a simpler, fairer, flatter Tax 
Code; and reform for the tax collector, increasing accountability and 
requiring the IRS to treat the taxpayer with dignity, respect, and due 
process of the law.

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