<p>The Internal Revenue Service is bringing back its controversial practice of randomly auditing individual tax returns in an effort to crack down on what it says is a growing wave of tax scams.</p>
<p>The move is an about-face for the IRS, which did its last batch of random audits in 1988 and was slapped down by Congress when it tried to resume them in the mid-1990s. Legislators pilloried the agency for its aggressive tactics in conducting such audits, in which thousands of Americans were forced to defend every line in their tax returns.</p>