The House Republican Conference is looking for tales of horror this Halloween, but they don't want to hear about witches, ghosts or goblins. They want taxpayers to tell them about Internal Revenue Service demons, blood-sucking bureaucrats and Transylvanian tax collectors.
The conference has launched a new section on their Web site, "Tell Us Your IRS Horror Story," where tortured taxpayers can relate their IRS experiences from hell.
Within the first 24 hours of operation, 300 people wrote in about their taxpaying nightmares, said Terry Holt, spokesman for the Republican Conference. Holt said traffic to the site doubled to 20,000 hits in 24 hours after the IRS section was added.
He described the section as part of the conference's "ongoing effort to raise the public's awareness about IRS reform." The section also asks people if they would support a GOP-backed proposal to scrap the tax code.
The timing of the new section's unmasking had two reasons, said Holt. First, the House leadership has scheduled floor action for an IRS reform bill early next week. Second, the conference couldn't resist opening open an online house of IRS horrors the week of trick-or-treat time.
But people who share their horror stories may not have to settle for an unhappy ending to their tales. Anyone who wants can have their stories referred to their own representative in Congress or the IRS's taxpayer advocate's office.
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