by Ryan Lee Stollar
The Gestapo were the infamous secret police used by the German army during World War II. During the middle of the night, Hitler’s forces smashed the windows and broke down the doors of many Jewish homes and businesses. An enormous and abusive government had begun in Germany, and would continue to terrorize the people for a long time. Unfortunately, this terror did not fall when Hitler and the Third Reich did- it continued into the former Soviet Union and thrives now in China. Here is an even scarier thought: totalitarianism has entrenched its roots into the free country known as the United States of America in the form of a tax collecting agency. Many American citizens have come to realize this as the Internal Revenue Service has raided their homes, put them under electronic surveillance, and seized their property and money.
How could this happen in the United States of America, the land of the free? John Marshall, a former Supreme Court Justice, said that “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” The cause of disaster is the fact that we have allowed the Internal Revenue Service to have too much power. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Without any restrictions or supervision, the once-small agency has grown into a monster. In fact, the Internal Revenue Service has been given the ability to overstep Constitutional boundaries for the simple purpose of getting tax revenue. The Supreme Law of the Land, the Constitution, has been ignored just so that money can be gathered.
For example: the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution states that: “The rights of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” This basically means that the government cannot, without due process and reasonable cause, search or seize you or any of your property. The concept of “innocent until proven guilty” is essentially the same as the 4th Amendment.
The concept of “innocent until proven guilty” is exactly what the Internal Revenue Service is dashing to pieces. Without any due process of the law, it can search and seize whatever it desires. The following facts(1) support this:
•Only the IRS can invade the privacy of a citizen without court process of any kind
•Only the IRS can seize property without a court order
•Only the IRS can force a citizen to try his case in a special court governed by the IRS
•Only the IRS can compel production of documents, records, and other materials without a court case being in existence
•Only the IRS can with impunity publish a citizen’s debt to the IRS
•Only the IRS can legally, without a court order, subject citizens to electronic surveillance
•Only the IRS is free to maintain lists of citizens guilty of no crime for the purpose of harassing and monitoring them
It is not enough to just show that it has the ability to abuse its power, but to understand that the IRS has actually abused its power- terrifyingly. Congressman George Hansen summarizes all of the agency’s nightmarish acts in the following manner: “Law breaking government at all levels jails ministers and church members, makes fugitives of women and children, rigs juries, conducts illegal wire taps and spends billions to send innocent citizens to jail.” Are these just false overstatements, or true facts? Senate hearings in 1997(2) exhibited that the facts speak for themselves:
•The IRS abused taxpayers whom agents perceived were in a poor position to fight back
•The IRS engaged in practices designed to threaten and intimidate innocent taxpayers
•The IRS has an appallingly high error rate and consistently bills taxpayers for taxes they do not owe
•The IRS used a quota system for collections (which is illegal under the 1988 Taxpayer Bill of Rights) even though, in many cases, taxpayers did not owe what the IRS demanded
•The IRS drove some taxpayers to suicide
•The IRS refused to pay court-ordered judgments to taxpayers and continued litigating- at taxpayer expense -until some taxpayers were driven into bankruptcy or died
•The IRS rarely disciplined or fired poor employees, even when they violated the law
•The IRS kept poor records and destroyed some taxpayers’ records deliberately
You might ask yourself, “How does the IRS accomplish these acts of terrorism?” The answer is quite frightening: it has its own army. With this, it raids homes and seizes property whenever it chooses. Those who oppose the IRS’s actions are severely punished. As Congressman Hansen said, “the IRS defies and intimidates its Congressional creators to go virtually unchallenged in its blatant illegal exercise of awesome powers against the American public.” The IRS recently purchased a million dollars worth of SigArms high capacity semi-automatic handguns, and by the year 2000 the IRS will have spent $200,000 more on high capacity Remington shotguns.(3)
It is time for a change. The IRS cannot collect revenue needed by Congress without acting in a manner inconsistent with and completely contrary to personal freedoms. As Dr. Richard W. Rahn states, “The Internal Revenue Service as it exists today is incompatible with a free society. It is intrusive and, by its every nature, contrary to the fundamental rights of citizens.” This agency must not be allowed to continue its blatant violations of American rights if freedom is to remain protected in the United States.
Ryan Lee Stollar is the President of the Center for American Freedom
Sources:
(1) Congressman George Hansen, “To Harass Our People: The IRS and Government Abuse of Power,” published by Positive Publications, 1984
(2) Dr. Richard W. Rahn, “The IRS Choice: Tax Reform or Self-Destruction,” published by the Heritage Foundation, 1999
(3) Jon Dougherty, “Why Is the IRS Arming?,” published by the USA Journal Online, 1997
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