[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 16 (Thursday, February 26, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H636]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      BUSINESS AS USUAL AT THE IRS

  (Mr. TIAHRT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, some people think it is not fair to pick on 
the IRS so much. But when we think about all the people whose lives 
were turned upside down because of an honest mistake or an audit, our 
outrage might resurface with even greater force.
  Americans could probably be divided into those who have experienced 
IRS abuse or incompetence and those who have not. And it would be 
interesting to see how many are in each group.
  Mr. Speaker, listen to this horror story: Because of a printing 
error, about a million taxpayers could mail their returns to the IRS 
and see them sent right back to the sender. Hard to file a return on 
time when that happens. It turns out that there was a computer error on 
the stick-on address labels that are used for processing. The IRS bar 
code tells the computer to take poor Mr. Taxpayer's form and send it 
right back to him.
  Of course, in fairness we could say that that mistake was a simple 
bureaucratic snafu or an isolated instance or we could note that this 
is an all-too-common IRS blunder and simply more evidence of business 
as usual at the IRS.

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