Why We Fear the IRS
People don&#x27;t realize that the U.S. has the most efficient tax system in the world in terms of what we spend to get a dollar of revenue and that means there is a very low amount of bullshit per mile.<p>I have gotten just about every kind of income there is at some time in the last 30 years and been self-employed and also made mistakes,  or had documents be disappeared by the maid,  had customers and publishers make mistakes on 1099s, etc.  I&#x27;m actually better than average at dealing with paperwork but sometimes when I am stressed I get in a funk where I don&#x27;t open my mail for a month.<p>Thus I have gotten real scary letters about how I owe $40,000 (the IRS didn&#x27;t correctly process the decimal point on a 1099 I got from Wrox press) or I owe $351.82 (just got that one right after Christmas,  despite the fact that I paid them $350.82 out of my bank account on Dec 5)  I even was late to file my taxes for one year by a year and a half and have sometimes completely screwed up estimated tax payments.<p>Practically though I have dealt with all these situations and the IRS people have been very nice to deal with on the phone and via mail.  Every time I have had much more apprehension of how bad it is going to be it turns out to be  no big deal.  I have paid fines but these are not at all punitive and if you are in some situation where you really can&#x27;t pay you can negotiate a payment plan with some write-off of the debt with help from a tax lawyer or enrolled agent.<p>Back in the 1970s the IRS was awful and there would be horror stories like what happened to R. Crumb,  but both Reagan and Clinton introduced major reforms in how the tax system works that greatly improve the &quot;customer experience.&quot;<p>I have seen how they have integrated with the IRS with Obamacare and they have done this in a way that addresses the issue of people having unpredictable income that is actually simple and practical for everyone concerned.<p>So don&#x27;t believe the right wing propaganda.  The worst administrative problem the IRS has is that they still have a shocking number of people filing fake tax returns,  collecting the money,  and running.  My uncle was working for the IRS and flabbergasted about this in the first few years of e-file and I don&#x27;t think it has gotten any better.