[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 46 (Thursday, April 23, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H2240]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TIME TO REIGN IN THE IRS

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, although the Liberals just hate to bash the 
IRS, ordinary Americans who pay taxes have no other choice.
  Consider this: In Fortune Magazine recently it says that there were 
119 million returns filed in the tax year 1996. Those returns triggered 
28 million error notices. It turns out that one in 11 of those error 
notices was itself in error. So the IRS is routinely wrong about your 
being wrong.
  Now, I did not learn arithmetic using ``whole math'' like our lucky 
kids today, but I come up with about 2.5 million IRS errors, 2.5 
million times when the IRS is accusing you of being a tax cheat, when, 
in fact, you are just one more falsely accused taxpayer by the IRS.
  The IRS is a place that does not operate under the same rules as 
society does. The IRS can accuse, make demands, confiscate, shut down, 
and make you prove that the IRS is wrong. And when the IRS is wrong, 
well, tough luck.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time to rein in the IRS.

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