[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 132 (Monday, September 29, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H8121]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  ELIMINATE THE IRS AS IT IS NOW KNOWN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I rise tonight to speak on a 
very important topic, and that is to eliminate the IRS as we know it, 
and I have to thank my friend, the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. 
Duncan], who has outlined well the case for why we in Congress, the 
House and the Senate, working together with the executive branch, must 
make these fundamental changes.
  We have a Tax Code that is over 5 million words, an agency that has 
113,000 agents, and there are really two issues here. The two issues 
are these: First, we need to have IRS change, and then we need to make 
sure that in fact the code itself changes and we have a new system.
  The IRS has to change because we have the abuses caused by the kind 
of burden of proof that is required. Right now in the United States the 
Commissioner of the IRS is presumed to be correct and the taxpayers are 
presumed to be guilty. In no other part of Anglo-American law is anyone 
presumed guilty before evidence is presented. It seems to me that that 
is a very fundamental, logical, reasonable change that has to be made, 
legislatively speaking, right here in the House and as well in the 
Senate.
  Beyond making the burden-of-proof change, we should see a change, I 
believe, in the culture of how the investigations are conducted. We 
have heard case upon case last week in the Senate Committee on Finance 
and I, in my district in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, have seen 
where regular business people, individuals and families have been 
terribly hurt by investigations without probable cause, where we have 
bank accounts seized, businesses closed, individuals' lives turned 
upside down because there may have been a belief, without evidence, 
that something was wrong.
  The fact is in many cases the IRS has overstepped its bounds. There 
have been quotas for having cases brought, for convictions being made, 
and when in fact this has been turned over. We need to make sure the 
IRS is changed so that when there is an investigation conducted it is 
with probable cause, and we will not have bank accounts seized, we will 
not have businesses closed and we will not have lives turned upside 
down.
  We need to make sure we provide those kinds of safeguards that 
already exist in the private sector. If someone wants to bring an 
action in a civil court, they have to have probable cause. And if a 
person brings injury against someone else, they have to pay just 
compensation. The United States should have the same burden so that the 
taxpayers are protected.
  That is why I am sponsoring and cosponsoring legislation in this 
Congress to make the changes on the burden of proof, on changing the 
IRS, and on having a date certain by which we do that. By the year 2000 
we will have a replacement agency which will oversee, hopefully, a new 
IRS and as well a new code.
  The current code, with all the words and all the exclusions and all 
the exemptions seem to favor only a few while taking money from the 
many. We want to see the possibility of flat tax, one that would have 
exemptions, of course, for mortgage deduction, for State and local 
taxes that are collected, as well for charitable deductions.
  Those kinds of reasonable changes will be the kinds of changes that 
the American people can embrace. And Congress has to lead the way in 
response to the abuses that have been outlined not only in the Senate 
Committee on Finance, Madam Speaker, but as well in the Committee on 
Ways and Means with the oversight hearings that are being conducted.
  I am hoping colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join together 
to make those changes, because I know there are people in every State 
that have had these abuses. They must end. And while most of the IRS 
are doing a good job and care about what they have as a career, we have 
set up the circumstances by creating a system with an unfair burden of 
proof with a runaway agency because of the culture that was created 
years ago.
  Those fundamental changes must be made. We can downsize and we can 
make sure that we are delivering to the people the kind of government 
they want and the kind of protection they want. And so I thank my 
colleagues for their support in this new legislation.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington [Mr. Metcalf] is recognized for 5 minutes.

  [Mr. METCALF addressed the House. His remarks will appear hereafter 
in the Extension of Remarks.]

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