[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 144 (Thursday, October 23, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H9044]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       WORKING TO REFORM THE IRS

  (Mr. THUNE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. THUNE. Madam Speaker, are you afraid to step up to the customer 
service counter at Sears and return an item if it is the wrong size or 
color? Are you afraid to send a plate of cold food back to the kitchen 
in a restaurant? Are you afraid to tell your mechanic about the strange 
noise in the new muffler they just installed? Probably not.
  Are you afraid to call the IRS after finding an honest mistake in 
your tax return? You bet you are. So are most Americans.
  A few weeks ago in church I met a man who was having terrible 
problems with the IRS. He wanted to come forward and share his story 
with one of the local TV stations, but in the end he decided not to. He 
was too afraid.
  We have a lot of things to fear in the world today, from terrorist 
bombings abroad to gang violence here on the home front. Dealing with a 
Government agency created by and supported by our tax dollars should 
not be one of them. This is one of the reasons we need to reform the 
IRS, but that alone is not enough. We cannot expect efficiency and 
accommodation from an agency that is expected to enforce the world's 
most complicated Tax Code. We need to reform the IRS, but we also need 
to reform the Tax Code. Paying taxes is hard enough. We do not need 
110,000 IRS employees and 4,000 amendments to the Tax Code to make it 
even harder.

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