More IRS Bashing to Come

Look for still more ridiculous political rhetoric when the Internal Revenue Service hate-fest of 1997 segues into a new round of IRS-bashing in 1998.

The latest bit of doublespeak: the growing tendency of GOP politicians--and the occasional Democrat--to talk about overhauling the "IRS Code."

There's no such thing, of course. As the trade weekly Tax Notes recently observed, this term conveniently overlooks the fact that tax laws are written by Congress, not by the IRS.

"It's their code and they should take the blame for any problems it contains," remonstrated the tax wonks' bible.