"What You Should Know"

On August 3, 2004 upon release of the 2004 Annual Report of the IRS Oversight Board, IRS Advisory Committee Chairman Roger Harris said he wants the IRS to "touch more people" through enforcement action. He said he believes that effort is justified based on the report, which claims one in five people "now believe that [tax] cheating is acceptable."

This has added fuel to IRS Commissioner Mark Everson's quest to restore the IRS enforcement machine to what it was 10 years ago. Everson promised the Senate Finance Committee he would restore IRS enforcement to "historic levels."

The number of taxpayers declared delinquent, and the number of enforced collection actions, are on the rise. In the 1990s, nearly five million citizens were added to the roles of delinquent taxpayers annually. That number began falling in 1997 and bottomed out in 2000, at about 4.1 million. By 2003, however, the number rose to 5.5 million delinquent taxpayers. Remember, this is the number of new delinquencies in just one year.

Though the number of collection actions, including liens, levies, and seizures, dropped after the 1998 IRS Restructuring Act, the number has risen steadily since the decline was arrested in 2000.

The number of liens filed has increased by 227 percent since the low-water mark in 1999. The number of property seizures by the IRS has increased by 439 percent since 2000, and the number of wage and bank levies has skyrocketed by 665 percent since their low point in 2000.

The agency has asked for more funding and manpower, and the Bush administration has accommodated those requests. In the IRS budget passed by the House Appropriations Committee on July 22, 2004 the IRS received $10.3 billion for 2005, $107 million more than the agency had in 2004.

Statements made and actions taken by IRS Tax Commissioner Everson since taking office indicate he will be inclined to spend the money on hiring more tax collectors, implementing more audits, issuing more wage and bank levies, and other enforcement actions, rather than on taxpayer assistance or education. As a result, some Washington insiders have said of the commissioner, "enforcement seems to be his middle name."