[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13979]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      IRS TARGETS POOR SOUTHERNERS

  (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, every day there seems to be a new horror 
story coming out of the IRS. I sort of feel like David Letterman, 
because the stories I have to tell are so implausible, so hard to 
believe, that I should probably say, ``I'm not making this up.''
  It turns out that poor Southerners are more likely than almost anyone 
else to be audited by the IRS. Why do you think this is? Well, of 
course, one reason is because there is rampant abuse, truly massive 
abuse in the earned income tax credit program and the IRS is perfectly 
correct in going after tax cheats who are ripping off their fellow 
Americans.
  The problem is that there is another reason why poor Southerners are 
being targeted. That reason is more sinister and it is a reason the IRS 
does not want to talk about.
  The poor do not have the resources to defend themselves against an 
army of IRS lawyers.
  So here we have the United States Government embarked on a deliberate 
policy to take advantage of the weak and vulnerable just struggling to 
get by, barely making it to the next payday.
  I think that is wrong.

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