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To: X Y Zebra who wrote (75275)	9/28/2002 2:21:25 PM
From: X Y Zebra	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 208838

The world of Mad Max coming soon... ? usatoday.com IRS chief: Too many cheaters prospering WASHINGTON — Departing IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti on Tuesday warned that a weakened IRS is failing to keep pace with a surge of cheating. The federal tax system "is on a serious long-term down trend," Rossotti wrote in a report to the Internal Revenue Service Oversight Board, a panel created during a reform wave in the late 1990s. Rossotti, whose term ends Nov. 12, produced the report at the board's request for a self-assessment of his five years as the nation's chief tax collector. President Bush has not yet named a successor. Rossotti has consistently voiced concern about IRS' flagging tax enforcement in the face of budget cuts. The new report is significant because it offers his perspective as a short-timer in the job: Increased cheating has outweighed the benefits of reform measures aimed at taxpayers' rights and better service. "We are winning the battle, but losing the war," he says. The IRS estimates that $207 billion in taxes go unpaid each year. Of that, Rossotti says, $30 billion is money that the IRS has identified as owing but uncollectable for lack of staff and resources. Tax evasion schemes are proliferating, he says, and the USA's system of voluntary tax compliance could collapse if honest taxpayers get the notion that it carries no consequences. Tax consultants and accountants, have promoted "schemes ... designed to improperly reduce taxes ... based on the simple premise they can get away with it." Rossotti says the IRS needs to beef up enforcement with better computers and 2% staffing increases each year for five years. Even then, he says, the agency would be smaller than it was in 1990. Rossotti, a former technology executive from Northern Virginia, was named to head the IRS during a period of sweeping reform, the result of bureaucratic horror stories and tales of arrogance in dealing with the public. From the start Rossotti has said agency reform would be a decade-long process. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, an IRS critic active in reform legislation, welcomed Rossotti's focus on tax evaders but stopped short of pledging support for future budget increases.