AN OVERTAXED IRS

ITS KLUTZY COMPUTER SYSTEM COSTS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT $150 BILLION A YEAR IN UNCOLLECTED TAXES AND MAKES THE AGENCY AN EASY MARK FOR CHEATS

By Richard Stengel/Washington Monday, Apr. 07, 1997
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This is a nation founded on a tax revolt. No one wants a meddlesome Big Brother tax system that can find your odd sock for you, but it ought to be as capable as American Express or Citicorp. Chiseled above the entrance of the IRS building in Washington is an Oliver Wendell Holmes axiom: "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society." Americans also pay for the agency that collects those taxes, and they have a right to expect not perfection but efficiency.

--Reported by Bruce van Voorst/Washington, Sam Allis/Boston and S.C. Gwynne/Austin

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