About a year and a half ago my brother received a letter from the IRS demanding payment of $230,000 dollars in back taxes and penalties from a tax return he filed six years ago.
He hired a tax attorney and filed a counterclaim claiming he actually had overpaid his taxes by $42,000 dollars over the last 7 years.
The case went to court. They proved in court the IRS had basically lost a schedule he had sent in detailing the basis in a home he had sold six years ago, and that he had overpaid his taxes over a 7 year period. He had been too conservative with his deductions, and the attorney was more aggressive when he re-casted 7 years of tax returns. He paid the attorney about $12,000 and pocketed about $30,000.
To this day I think the pricks at the IRS simply thought he would roll over and negotiate a settlement with them and that he would not have kept records back that far. They did not know my brother is a pack rat and keeps absolutely everything. They are still bullies in my book, but they are not as smart as they think they are.
Victories are rare when the House rigs the game in it’s favor. Especially for someone with little financial means to fight back.
If one is lucky - they may get a judge that has moral convictions. Those beholden to power or ideology have no restrictions on imposing tyranny because morality (and the Constitution) means nothing to them.
There came a time in our history when continuing to be limited to the tools that the King and Parliament afforded the Colonists became nothing more than exercises in futility and repeated injury.
When you realize that there is no tool from within a corrupted system that redresses grievances, you understand that other tools are necessary if one wants to preserve liberty.
Asking the government for permission to exercise liberty and rights within their rigged system of corruption is not one of those tools.