People-Watching At The Local IRS Office

I keep thinking back to the people I've observed over the past couple of weeks while visiting the IRS office.  Like the lady who struggled with a condition that required a cane in each hand in order to get around.  Or the young father who spent over three-and-a-half hours there with his toddler and his mother (or mother-in-law) helping out, walking the child around, carrying her, keeping her entertained, cradling her when she slept.  There was the woman who spoke with a heavy accent in broken English working things out with an agent.  Every time the agent told her about how much money was due, or what the interest or penalties amounted to, she sounded bewildered, like it was somehow incredible that the government was piling all of this on her.  The agent relentlessly spewed numbers and timetables like a machine, making her gasp at times.  They talked for over an hour.  She had so many questions.

I remember hearing agents in other cubicles talking to their “customers” and laying down the law – this is the payment program you've agreed to, you have to remain current with all new taxes due, you can’t get behind or we’ll cancel the agreement.  Do you understand these terms?

There were people who complained at the front desk of having been in and out of that office two or three times that day, getting the run around as to what the agents needed only to find out when they came back that there was something else they needed to go back home and get, or they had to take a number again and wait to be called for further help.  A couple of tough looking Latinos were getting this treatment, and one of them said in protest with a Spanish accent, “I’m a United States citizen!  I shouldn't be treated like this.”  I could hear in his voice that his high expectations for his adopted country were sinking, and I felt bad not only for him, but for all of us.

  

“You don’t take cash?” asked an exasperated woman.

“Ma’am, there’s a sign right there on the door.  We’re not accepting cash at this time.”

“But-“

“Ma’am, I don’t have time to argue.  There’s the sign.  You’ll have to move out of the line.  I have other people to help.”

There was the self-employed lady and her daughter looking through the dozens upon dozens of forms and instruction booklets that were available.  She left with a stack of them at least five inches thick (no exaggeration).

On my last visit there was a guy that brought in a bag of papers who needed help getting his taxes done.  The guy at the front desk said no help would be given until the man’s accountant put everything in order first.  The guy ended up walking out just as I was leaving.  He told me on the elevator that he had managed to get the day off to have this straightened out, and now the day off had been wasted.

These observations were made over the course of four visits to that office.  Don’t get the idea that it was a scene of constant pandemonium.  Most of the time it was silent, with an assortment of old and young, black, white, Latin and Asian people sitting in their chairs waiting for their number to be called, fighting off sleep or fully embracing it.

A lot of my friends on the left look at taxation and support of government as being all about people and meeting their needs.  And when they hear me disparage the income tax, their first concern seems to be that its abolition would ultimately affect people in a negative way.  But look at what its enforcement does to people.  The income tax, with its heavy-handed demands, is itself a people issue; it is a well-being issue from the start.  Think of the millions of man-hours that would be freed up if there were no income tax.  Do we suppose that lady with the dual canes had no better place to spend her day?  Wouldn't that toddler have rather spent her day in a familiar setting where she was free to play and make noise and be a toddler?  Does compliance with any type of consumption tax force us to run around all day at the bidding of tax agents and burn up our days off from work?  Does a sales tax force cashiers to drag their patrons into a cubicle to read them the riot act?  Does a tax on a little trinket made overseas force people to pour over mountains of instruction booklets and forms and rules and regulations; to take a number and wait for hours on end to get their marching orders from a bureaucrat; to try and figure out how the honorable activity of work forces you to incur debt?

The time that is consumed by compliance with the income tax – these millions of man-hours every year – could be spent in one of two ways if given back to the people.  That extra time could be spent putting in more time at work, benefiting the worker and the business.  Or, that time could be spent on leisure and entertainment, benefiting the refreshed worker and raising his or her quality of life, not to mention benefiting the leisure and entertainment industries.

So what stands in our way?  Only our stubborn belief that a free and creative people are not yet creative enough to figure out how to build a road or a school and remain free.  Is that really all the farther we've evolved in our thinking?