Can a Conservative Work as an Auditor for the IRS in Good Conscience ?

Feb 25,2009

[Goreknowshowtocheat]

How true. The targets will be Republicans or Democrat mistresses that sang. The IRS will be used to dismantle the country one taxpayer at a time.

[Lurker]

Only if he has no problems being a Government paid thief.

[IYAS9YAS]

Certainly.

[RegulatorCountry]

Having a pro-business conservative audit businesses is better than having a typical leftist drone do it. There is an element of leeway in legal interpretation, so he can bring an element of simple human kindness and mercy to the process. Opportunities are very limited right now, as your friend has discovered. He should take it.

[toomuchcoffee]

Does he/she want any friends?

[gieriscm]

Here's a thought for you. My husband and I have a home-based FFL (we're custom firearm manufacturers). We had our compliance inspection this week. The ATF inspector is 1) a "gun guy", and 2) more interested in helping us comply with the regs than with dinging us on trivial paperwork infractions.

So, in a similar vein, who do you think John Q Taxpayer who is undergoing an audit would rather deal with: someone seeking to squeeze them for every last $$$ in late fees, penalties, and interest, or someone who realize that we are all human, we sometimes make mistakes, and people should have a chance to rectify them without penalty?

Having said that, tax cheats like former Senator Daschle need to be penalized, but that's a whole other issue...

[Incorrigible]

The answer is of course, yes.

The only question for him is if he can tolerate anti-business liberals he will undoubtedly be working with. (Though the IRS computer people I’ve met seemed quite reasonable)

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

If you are not in the right victim group you won’t get the job.

[DManA]

It is important to direct anger towards the appropriate target - Congress, not the IRS.

[IYAS9YAS]

If anything, his conservative instincts will keep him from becoming too much of a megalomaniac in dealing with the average tax payer. He’ll tend to view himself as a servant of the people instead of their master.

Agreed. When I worked as an auditor for a state, you could generally tell the conservatives from the liberals in that the liberals were all about generating revenue, but the conservatives mostly wanted to help the taxpayers understand how to file properly, apart from any tax or refund issues.

[only1percent]

It's the rule not the exception for IRS agents to be helpful. They recognize that the Code and Treasury Regs are complicated and really do want to help you to comply. A few bad apples aside, they don't seek to punish people inordinately for innocent errors. Deliberate tax evasion, on the other hand, doesn't get such consideration. Nor should it -- most tax evaders aren't committing civil disobedience, and aren't even evading the parts of the Code to which conservatives most object (the marriage penalty, excessive marginal rates). They are simply trying to reduce their tax burden by concealing income or inflating expenses.

Concerning a business agent position, 99% of business tax inspection work would continue in one form or another under a flat tax regime or pretty much any other regime favored by conservatives, because they address not the rate of tax or the fact of payment, but instead the question of whether there was taxable income in the first place -- not an issue that arises in individual taxes, where gross and not net income is the baseline for tax. If we had no corporate income tax but instead a national sales tax or a VAT than you'd have a different, but equally complicated, set of questions as to whether and what amount of taxable sales or value added occurred.

[Professor_Leonide]

Good question.

Can a Christian vote at all? Both parties are pro-abortion and both advocate confiscating private property by means of deadly force if necessary.

It’s a tough call to make.

[SnakeDoctor]

Absolutely. There is a distinct difference in liking a law/policy and enforcing a law or policy. As an auditor, your job is to enforce the law as written, not pass judgment on whether the law is written correctly.

The same policy goes for attorneys, federal agents, police officers, military officials, or anyone else charged with law enforcement. You may work internally to have policies changed, etc ... but it is not necessarily morally wrong to enforcing a law you wouldn’t have voted to pass.

There are, of course, limits to that ... i.e. Nuremburg. But, tax policy is not comparable to internment and extermination of a race.

SnakeDoc

[Marie]

That depends: How incompetent can he be? ;-)

[Marie]

For me, I want all the good people “inside” that we can get.

For instance; I’ve told soldiers thinking about getting out because of their new CIC to *please* stay in. One day *I* may be at the wrong end of a fire hose and if that day comes, I want *them* holding the hose.

Same thing for an auditor.

After a couple of years, he can do what many good Americans do when they’ve been embedded in the swamp for awhile: Turn into whistle blowers. Tell the truth to the American people.

[jimt]

There ARE good folks who work for the IRS.

When I was treasurer for the local Society of Manufacturing Engineers chapter we had a tax problem - threatening letters, etc. Letters and copies of records didn’t work.

I went to a local IRS office and met with an auditor face to face. THAT worked. He took our side, fought our case through the bureaucracy, and got our problem fixed.

[Billthedrill]

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. H.L. Mencken

All I can tell you is that both of the two audits I went through ended up with me getting a check cut to me. The auditors were wonderful people.

I worked with a very good applications programmer way back when who used to be an IRS auditor - major anarcho-commie, Chomsky fan, you name it. He had some of the same reservations from a Lefty POV. (In fact he was so far left that people thought he was to the right of me. I was the only one at work who'd talk Marxism to him.) His take was almost Randian - it was that nothing in the job description really fell afoul of his standards and that taking money to do what was within them needed to be judged on its own merits. He said that when it came time to tear down the system he'd do it honestly. Interesting guy.

[Janet Jubilee]

I own a small publishing company. Last week, I was notified that our company is to be audited. I feel that this audit is an invasion of privacy. I have just enough to pay my help and personal bills. I can not pay taxes left over from three years ago without firing one of my helpers in the business. This is how small businesses are effected by greedy desperate tax thugs. When small businesses fall apart, taxes are no longer paid by the business or past helpers. More unemployment + less tax = more tax on the small business that can not afford it.
This man should get the job and than assist in helping the small businesses by eliminating fines and interest. After that, he should volunteer to assist with returns so that businesses won’t get flagged again. Most small business can not afford tax attorneys and CPA’s, though I have no choice. My attorney will negotiate-as I am just too angry and do not understand the IRS money language.

[IYAS9YAS]

Unless you really are certain that you will owe, there really shouldn't be anything to worry about. Did you have a tax preparer complete your paperwork or did you do it yourself? If the tax preparer did, make certain he/she can assist you, as that is what you pay them for.

Never lie to the auditor. However, never ever volunteer information. Let them do their work, and make them do it right.

When I did audits, the best thing I could do to get information was sit back and let the taxpayer talk. Again, I never went in with a "gotcha" mentality, but sometimes folks seemed to want to do themselves in. If there is a void in the conversation, don't fill it.

It is not in the best interests of the IRS to put you out of business.