The IRS is the biggest of brothers we love to hate. As tax filing season rears its ugly head, it's important that we remember the Internal Revenue Service is not our ally. While it is important we pay taxes, we don't have to be quiet about it.
Back in 1862, President Lincoln mandated an income tax to fund the Civil War; since then, our tax rate has exploded from 3% to a minimum of 10% and up to 37%, while the bureaucratic infrastructure climbed to upwards of 100,000 employees. Thankfully, President Trump pruned that workforce by 26% in mid-2025.
Here are three reasons we should distrust the IRS:
Intentionally Targeting Tea Party Groups
Think back to 2009, when the Tea Party movement was growing rapidly. Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama were aggressive in their quest for cap and trade, Obamacare, and economic spending. Equally aggressive were the conservatives who organized to stop them.
In 2006, the IRS received roughly 54,000 applications for tax-exempt status. Jump ahead to 2009 and the agency saw nearly 72,000 applications for non-profit tax exemption. Understaffed and overwhelmed, the agency delayed decisions and went so far as to flag conservative political groups for further scrutiny with audits.
Citizens who only wanted to take their country back from the brink of socialism were now being targeted by their own government. Always by the books, Tea Partiers and Republicans filed their forms in accordance with IRS mandates and, as a result, individual donors were audited. While the agency has maintained its position as "politically neutral," it is interesting that the IRS commissioner at the time stepped down after an investigation into the matter was launched.
We saw friends, partners, and groups we respected dragged through the mud at the risk of everything — their finances, reputations, businesses, and employment — by political opponents. Is it any wonder I am so concerned about TPUSA's alternate halftime show? The IRS requires all nonprofit events and activities be in line with the organization's mission statement!
The IRS Knows but Refuses to Help
If you ever call up the IRS and talk to an actual person, you will learn they already know everything there is to know: how much you made, how much you owe, what you'll get back, your deductions — all of it. The mountain of digital files that follow you around go right into your profile but not to you.
You, dear citizen, are on your own to either complete the complicated and poorly worded tax filing forms yourself or hire someone to handle it for you. A decimal, a comma, one wrong box—and too bad, so sad—you’re on the chopping block. Maybe with the implementation of AI we can see some streamlining in this area, but for now you'd better have all of your ducks in a row.
As a teacher, when a student was confused about a test question, I couldn't give her the answer but I was desperately cheering her on, hoping and praying she would get it right. The IRS, at times, seems like they want you to get it wrong; otherwise, why would they not tell you exactly how much you owe? Why would they make us jump through all of these insane hoops and then provide zero help when we get it wrong?
This is why conservatives claim that taxation is actually theft. We are being forced under threat of penalty (some may even say duress) to fork over our money. The masked bandit on the train with the six-shooters and canvas bags with dollar signs painted on them really isn't that far off. After all, what are we going to do if we don't want liens on our homes, fines, or charges? Here, just take my money and leave me and my family alone!
OG: Original Gaslighters
Gaslighting is the psychological manipulation of a person that makes them question their sanity, logic, memory, intelligence, and perspective. For example, you have a friend who is habitually late and, while you sit at the restaurant waiting, they text you over and over that they are "literally 10 minutes out," but when they finally arrive two hours late, they make you feel like the bad guy until you end up apologizing for not being a better friend.
The IRS is one of the OGs, the original gangers or, in this case, original gaslighters. Here we have a government agency that takes our income by force, requires us to file paperwork that has a 50-60% chance of being wrong, threatens us with scary penalties, and then makes it seem like they are doing us a favor when they return what we overpaid. "It's a refund!" they say. We have been conditioned to celebrate the money that is already ours being returned to us.
Even more reason to distrust the IRS: They have allowed for automatic deductions from our paychecks to "make it easier." You won't miss it if you never had it, right? "Forget writing a check, we'll just take a chunk and you'd better hope we get it right or else we'll be coming to you when you file your returns with our hand out," said the proverbial IRS agent. "Surprise! You didn't file your employment forms correctly — we aren't the bad guys, even though we could have told you based on the information we have on you, but you're the one who did it wrong. Not us."
Taxes, along with death, are the only guarantees in life and, to a limited extent, they are helpful to our country. Additionally, people are mostly good, and IRS agents are people so IRS agents are mostly good. The good ones, let's be real, are handcuffed to bad policies and murky protocols. The bad ones are empowered by legalese and rubber stamps.
We need people to work for the IRS so we can have roads and border security, but that does not mean we can or should automatically trust them. The agency is a bureaucratic monster that does not care about your feelings. What's your IRS horror story? I know you have one because we all do.
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