STATEMENT OF
MAUREEN O'DWYER

IRS AUDITOR


Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the committee:

I am a grade 13 international examiner in the Manhattan District of
the Internal Revenue Service.  I joined the Service in March 1987 as a
grade 7 examiner.  My college studies were in mathematics, economics
and accounting.  Prior to that I was involved in art.  Within the
Service I progressed from the office examination of simple Form 1040s
to the field examination of small business Schedule Cs and F 1120s,
through to large case CEP examinations, and ultimately to the audit of
international corporations.

I have been in international for seven years.  In the past I have
received awards, and have also written an audit technique guide for
the Service.  When first approached to give testimony before you, I
was reluctant to do so, as I considered it to be a betrayal of my
fellow employees.  The IRS is an easy smear, and it has been reviled
both justly and unjustly in the press.  From the inside looking out it
is easy to distinguish between which accusations are true and which
are not.  No one has risen to the defense of the Service against the
unjust accusations.  I did not wish to add more fuel to the already
raging fire, or to further demoralize my fellow employees by
disclosing any other inequitable practices of the Service.

But our system of taxation is dependent on the taxpayer's belief that
the tax laws they follow will apply to everyone, and in the belief
that they will be administered impartially.  I have observed that this
impartiality does not exist, does not happen.  Therefore my sense of
righteous indignation at the betrayal of the fiduciary trust of the
American public by the Service outweighed any personal concern that my
testimony would display a lack of loyalty towards the Service.  It is
the average American citizen who is my employer, and it is this
citizen to whom I am beholden -- not the Service nor its
administrators nor my fellow employees.  Thus I am here today to
discuss the uneven enforcement of the Internal Revenue Service Code
and regulations by order of some Internal Revenue Service managers and
administrators.

I am also going to explain the reasons that the Service does this, and
the devastating effect it has on the morale and the sense of morality
of its employees.  My discussion begins with the case of my recent
past.

The taxpayer was a sophisticated international corporation well
schooled in international and tax law.  My examination of this
taxpayer led me to believe that it had aggressively pursued tax
avoidance.  I had orally proposed adjustments to this taxpayer on
issues which involved transfer pricing, reorganizations, mergers and
consolidations.  The dollar amount of my proposals were in excess of
$42 million, and had tax effects in excess of $12 million.  Penalties
and interest could double the tax effects to over $24 million.

The taxpayer had agreed on the issues proposed, but was negotiating as
to the numbers and was preparing a pricing study.  My manager, after
reviewing the case, asked me to call the taxpayer and get a response
date from them on their pricing study.  The taxpayer requested two
more weeks.  The two-week extension was given.  The following day a
memorandum listing over-age cases was circulated by the international
district program manager.  My case was on that list.  When my manager
received the memorandum on over-age cases he called me into his office
and ordered me to immediately "no-change" the case.  He said it was
not necessary to write an international examiners report.  He ordered
me to purge my work papers -- to simply hand in the tax return stamped
"No Change."  Therefore there will be no record of any audit work on
the issues considered in this case.  He informed me that he had the
absolute authority to do this, and he had the full support of his
branch chief in so doing, and that if I did not do this that I would
be held as insubordinate.

It was only when I threatened to go to inspection about being ordered
to purge my work papers that I was allowed to hand them in and write
"the international examiner's report -- no change, as ordered."  I was
not however even granted the two weeks promised to the taxpayer.  They
attempted to close the case agreed.  Nor was I allowed to write the
case up as unagreed in an attempt to protect the revenue base of the
Service.  That this was an egregious and capricious misuse of
authority by my manager can be seen by the fact that an international
examiner's report is always written up in the same format.  It takes
no greater or lesser amount of time to write a case unagreed, agreed,
or no change.  All the time I spend developing the issues was wasted.
The manager violated the mission of the Service to collect the proper
amount of the tax revenue at the least cost.

In that report I wrote of the issues of the taxpayer's counter
proposal and the order of my manager to "no change" the case.
Administrators and managers, while they bear the ultimate
responsibility for the disposition of cases which are worked by
examiners who are under their supervision, do not have unqualified
authority.  This means that there must be a sound and legal basis for
the disposition of all taxpayer cases.  These administrators are not
granted such absolute authority as they usurp, either through their
position descriptions or under the Internal Revenue manual.  They are
sworn in as servants of the public to uphold the law.  The assistant
district program manager international keeps a file on these reports
on closed cases.

My file on that case is missing.  It was removed because the case was
closed, no change without basis in tax law and proper IRS procedure --
and when a taxpayer was agreeing.  And that report contained my
protest.  If that report was ever accessed under the Freedom of
Information Act and the information on that action got out, the IRS
would be badly embarrassed.  The only defense of the IRS for its
action of no-change would be poor audit techniques and lack of issue
development by the examiner.

This the IRS could not do -- not only because it was not so, but
because of the tax sophistication of the taxpayer that was agreeing.
This decision by my manager to no-change the case was based on his
desire for advancement in the Manhattan District.

The Manhattan District was, and still is, statistics driven.  The
district is very self-conscious about having the oldest cases in the
Service, and its administration continually monitors the statistics,
not the issues, on aging cases.  A manager who has an aging case in
his group will not receive an evaluation that will merit him a
monetary award and help him carve out a career path within the
Service.  When my manager no-changed that case, he betrayed the trust
and confidence of the American people and his own sworn duty to
perform in a manner warranting the highest degree of public confidence
in his integrity, efficiency and fairness.  My manager, through
ambition, incompetence and lack of integrity, gave up a potential tax
deficiency which could have brought in as much revenue as $24 million
in exchange of his vain hope of a monetary award in the amount of
$2,000.

There are managers in the Manhattan District who hold their integrity
in higher esteem than their careers and who will argue for the merits
of issues on such cases.  These are usually the more intelligent and
technically competent managers.  Throughout the Manhattan District the
technically weaker managers consistently ordered cases closed,
no-change, if they begin to age.

In large case CEP it is standard practice to drop an issue that will
delay the closing of a case.  Large dollar amounts on major taxpayers
are routinely zeroed out in this manner.  It matters not that there
appears to be an egregious tax abuse, nor that the complexity of the
issue requires time to develop.  What matters is the manager receive a
performance award for having met the case closing deadline timely.
When questioned as to why the issue was dropped, a praiseworthy,
although obfuscating answer that is often given in response is, "It
was good taxpayer relations."

I am cognizant that there are cases which should be no-changed because
there are no issues.  However, this recognition that there is no issue
and the decision to no-change a case is one that is made early in the
audit cycle.  The cases that begin to age ordinarily have outstanding
issues which have gone unresolved due to the complexity of the issues
involved and the difficulty of their development, or due to the
deliberate procrastination and lack of cooperation on the part of the
taxpayer.  Therefore it can be seen that the cases which are closed,
no change, under this statistically driven cosmetic deadline are
usually large and wealthy taxpayers who have the means to consistently
contend and dispute with the IRS.

The Internal Revenue Service has often expressed the concern that an
adjustment would bankrupt Wall Street, but it has never expressed any
concern about bankrupting Main Street.  I am personally aware of
similar cases handled by other managers in the same manner which can
verify the above statements.  Due to time constraints I cannot
describe them all.  However, I would like to recount just one case.

The examiner in this case had proposed a unique and seldom considered
adjustment in international.  The adjustment placed a special tax on
the foreign shareholders of an American corporation.  The examiner had
researched the foreign tax treaty applicable to the foreign
shareholders and found no exemption to the tax.  The adjustment was
strictly statutory, highly technical, and ordinarily placed only
against American shareholders.  Even the taxpayer's highly qualified
and highly paid representative agreed that it was a viable issue.  But
because there was no case law on the application of this issue to
foreign shareholders, the representative requested that the examiner
secure a tech advise from Washington counsel in order to clarify and
resolve the issue.

To do so would age the case.  Therefore the examiner's manager ordered
the case closed, no change.  The amount of tax revenue given up by
this malfunctioning manager was about $500,000.  And if an audit was
extended to the later years, as it required by the Internal Revenue
manual, the amount of tax revenue would probably have been over one
million.

But all taxpayers are not treated to a no-change by a manager if the
case ages.  The aging returns of small taxpayers are written up
unagreed and penalties are assessed.  The taxpayer will receive a stat
notice; that is, it must respond within 90 days.  If the taxpayer does
not respond within this time-frame it will automatically lose its
appeals right and a right to petition tax court.  Understanding these
procedures is difficult for the unknowledgeable small taxpayer.
Without representation the small taxpayer is vulnerable.  The results
can be costly.

Stat notices are routinely done to small taxpayers through service
centers and correspondence audits and through agents in field and
office examines.  The Service does this because it has overloaded the
working inventory of examiners, in order to pump up closed case
statistics.  While this may be an example of what drives the IRS, a
perhaps more defining example of what drives a career-motivated IRS
administrator is an account of how two similar tax cases were handled
by one manager.  The examiner under the manager on both tax cases was
the same.  Unreported income and/or false deductions which would incur
a fraud penalty had been found in succeeding years in both tax cases
by the examiner.  Both taxpayers were professionals.  The first
taxpayer was very cooperative.  He went through the audit alone,
represented by neither accountant nor lawyer.  When it became apparent
that there would be unreported income, the examiner asked him to bring
in his accountant.  The man declined.  He was embarrassed, and could
not bear to have his accountant think that he had these charges
leveled against him by the IRS.

His tax deficiency without penalties for two years was about $45,000.
With interest and penalties, especially the civil fraud penalty, this
amount increased to over $100,000.  The man had no bank accounts and
no assets other than his cooperative apartment which was arranging to
sell in order to pay for this IRS assessment.  The examiner asked the
manager to remove the fraud penalty, explaining that although this man
could not substantiate all of the money which passed through his bank
account, the audit revealed that the man had sold some possessions,
and that he had received the return of some money which he had lent to
friends.

Both of these accounted for some, but not all of the unearned income
deposited in his accounts.  Perhaps a more comprehensive investigation
would find adequate explanations for the balance of the unreported
income.  The examiner also explained that if this man had
representation, refused to agree and his case went to appeal, that the
civil fraud penalty would probably not be upheld.  Deliberate intent
would be difficult to prove, especially when assessing the character
of this man.  During the audit years the man had successfully raised
two children as a single parent, had paid for medical expenses of
friends who could not afford to do so, and had altruistically donated
money to impersonal charities without thought of any personal gain.
The manager simply responded, "No, he's guilty."

This taxpayer, without an advocate, was callously condemned.  The
other taxpayer never appeared for the audit.  He was represented by a
CPA attorney, and also by a former IRS Criminal Investigative Division
employee.  The previous three years of his taxpayer returns had been
audited by another examiner; the taxpayer had agreed to the
disallowance of personal items which he had deducted on those returns.
Both of his representatives were uncooperative, cited IRS harassment
of their client, procrastinated, held back information, and
consistently attempted to intimidate the examiner.  Despite this the
examiner persisted and found substantially large deductions that were
false, as well as the same personal deductions that had been
disallowed in the previous three-year audit.

The deficiency, not including penalties for this taxpayer, was
$450,000; with civil fraud and other penalties, as well as interest it
would be over one million.

The moment the examiner found these false deductions, the
representatives changed their approach to the audit.  Formerly hostile
and aggressive, they now whimpered and became nauseatingly friendly.
They cited the prestige of the taxpayer and the representative in the
community and the meaning of their respective positions to the
community.  But they offered no explanation of the falsification and
the repeated taking of personal deductions which had been previously
disallowed.  The examiner on the other hand cited the education and
knowledge of the taxpayer, the contempt he displayed for the law by
taking personal deductions that he knew were wrong.  In comparison to
the first taxpayer, this man, considerably more wealthy, lived off his
tax return -- he deducted his designer clothes, the wages paid to his
housekeeper, the furnishings and rent of his personal apartment, as
well as trips abroad for both him and his father.  His charitable
donations were to foundations in his own industry, always bearing his
own name and designed to enhance his career.

An examiner has no authority to remove a penalty.  A manager does
under certain conditions.  When exhorted by the representative simply
to be understanding and give a little to this taxpayer, the manager,
without hesitation, removed a fraud penalty.  When asked by the
examiner why he removed it, this was when the manager removed the
fraud penalty, the manager's response was "If I didn't, the
representative would lose him as a client."  Why such an astounding
and perverted response from an IRS manager?  Because this was a
manager who was always looking for a tax appointment outside the
service.  By this decision he bonded a network with two men he saw as
wealthy and powerful and in a position to recommend him for some
future job opening.  This manager stands not alone in his behavior.

Other even more senior level administrators and executives do the
same.  Their agenda and introduction into the business world, they
network and make friends in preparation for careers outside the
service.  Their sense of morality has been eclipsed by their personal
ambition.  Many administrators have known IRS projects to be a waste
of time and of resources immediately after the inception of these
projects.  As those administrators were responsible for these
projects, the projects were pushed forward anyway because they were
tax trendy or because they would bring favorable publicity to the IRS
and thus to the career of the project administrator.  One such project
was so highly visible and trendy that it propelled the administrator
out of the service and into a lucrative position.  Another project had
good public relations value.  A senior level administrator placed a
lower level administrator in charge of that project and requested a
follow-up report on the project.  The lower administrator told the
senior administrator that the project was useless and should be
abandoned because the project could not achieve the goals that were
expected of it.  As the project had good public relations value, the
senior official told the lower official to expand the project and to
write it up as worthwhile.

I especially mention this in order to make the public aware that many
pronouncements made by the IRS are simply not true.  The service
deliberately disseminates false information.  An examiner complained
to me about the handling of his case by an IRS expert.  Two issues had
existed in the examiner's tax case.  One issue was entirely technical
in nature.  The taxpayer had conceded this issue.  The other issue
fell into a gray area that came under the umbrella of this man's
expertise.

As is the custom within the service, the expert was asked to attend
the closing conference on the case with the examiner and his manager.
The experts took over the case completely, treating the examiner and
his manager as bystanders.  The expert relinquished the technical
adjustment not within his province which had been conceded to by the
taxpayer.  He then reduced his own adjustment to a de minimis amount.
He told the examiner and the manager that this was necessary in order
to get an agreed case.  Actually, this man needed his issue agreed in
order to prove the worth of his expertise.  The taxpayer's prominent
lawyer was delighted.  The examiner and his manager were outraged,
vowing to never again invite the expert to a closing conference.

That evening, as the examiner stood near a fax machine, he saw a fax
come in for the expert.  It came from a prominent lawyer and a
prominent law firm praising the IRS expert for his excellent expertise
and invited the IRS expert to speak at a prominent legal association.

When people such as these experts, commissioners, district directors,
executives and lawyers leave the service, they return as
representatives of major taxpayers and ignore the ethical mandate of
the service that former employees disqualify themselves for a two-year
period from representing any taxpayers whose cases were open and under
their authority while they were employed by the service.  They seek to
intimidate examiners by asserting their prestige and their still
current contacts within the Service.  They endeavor to call in markers
to influence the people who may have promoted and those whom they wish
to manage in order to make the adjustments just go away.  A former
district director employed by a major accounting firm shamelessly
solicited work from other accounting firms, citing its influence
within the Service.

They bypassed an examiner in attempts to conduct the audit through a
manager or more senior-level administrator.  An audit is conducted by
an examiner; hence the title examiner.  The purpose is to seize
control of the examination in order to negotiate a settlement before
the audit even begins.  They exert tremendous pressure to drop
significant items on the return and to convert an adjustment which
would have substantial tax effects into an adjustment with no tax
effects.

These former administrators obstruct the path of the audit and never
respond to much of the requests for information.  They search for
those magical words -- good taxpayer relations, which they had tried
to use so often in their former careers, into the ears of the Service
administrators.  These remarkable subliminal prompters are so
effective that unwarranted settlements are made.

Bowing to the pressure of a representative, a manager reassigned a
case that had been closed unagreed for processing.  It was reassigned
to a junior examiner to be reworked in order to ensure the flow of the
audit toward the position of the representative, an adjustment of only
$2 million.  The case had been closed unagreed with the stamp of
approval of Washington counsel.  It is the policy of the service never
to reassign and rework a case except when the case has been left
incomplete due to the resignation or reassignment of the examiner.  As
the lead-in to my next section, I've been asked to express the
sentiments of the revenue officer in the Manhattan district collection
division.  He wished to appear before you today, but fear of losing
his job caused him not to appear as a witness to the magnitude of
retaliation that is imposed by the Service upon the outspoken.  Again,
as time limits his story, I include only his most poignant testimony.

This collection officer had written off as uncollectible two taxpayer
accounts.  His manager threatened disciplinary action against the
employee if he refused to levy these two taxpayers as ordered.  On
Christmas Day, this manager brutally forced the collection officer to
levy the salary of one taxpayer who was earning but subsistence wages.
The second taxpayer, who was dying of cancer, was living on welfare.
Even though internal documents informed the IRS that this man was a
welfare recipient, the collection officer was ordered by his manager
to have the terminally ill and impoverished taxpayer provide the
Service with a written statement and supporting documentation that
would verify his financial condition and his illness.

The collection officer was also instructed to make account of in order
to seize any and all assets that belonged to this sick taxpayer.  What
would the IRS do with $50 from a piggy bank?  Was it really necessary
for Big Brother to levy on Christmas Eve?  Could it not wait until
after Christmas Eve?  What was the ultimate disposition by the Service
of these two taxpayer accounts.  They were declared uncollectible and
written off; a tremendous amount of Service resources had been
utilized; time had been wasted; two taxpayers were preyed upon.  One
employee was demoralized, all on the order of management in its
attempt to achieve an improperly measured productivity statistic.

Before there is a taxpayer victim, there is first an employee victim.
If either of these taxpayers had the wherewithal to have filed a
complaint or had the actions of the collection office somehow become
public, management would have declared them the actions of a rogue
employee.  Not so.  Incidents such as these occur over and over again,
both in collection and in examination.

The employee is intimidated and coerced into submission to the misused
authority of administrators, with the resulting inequitable actions
that harm taxpayers.  While government agencies such as the Internal
Revenue Service should be held to standards of efficiency for
productivity, the Service can never be measured by the same standards
as for-profit businesses.  Statistics, as they are used by the
Internal Revenue Service to measure productivity, can never be
correct.  Productivity on cases must be measured by the complexity of
the issues involved, the complexity and cooperation of the taxpayer as
well as other mitigating circumstances.

However, the Service, as a number-oriented organization, will always
regress to the safety and rigidity of statistics.  Right now, within
the Service, as statistics and dollar yield are disappearing, other
statistics on months in process, hours per case and field time versus
office time are emerging to replace them.  These statistics are
directly ordered by Washington and remanded to local districts as
record-keeping for enforcement.  Within the IRS, the power of the
chain of command line authority prevails.  The pressure on lower-level
administrators to achieve these administratively-imposed statistical
goals is overwhelming.  Special emphasis is placed on blind obedience.

Prompted by the desire for successful careers, administrators on each
succeeding lower level will yield.  The Service acknowledges and
rewards deference to line authority, not deference to moral authority.
Goals must be reached.  Statistics are massaged.  A senior-level
administrator will order the justified penalties of a major delinquent
taxpayer removed in order to get the case quickly agreed and closed
into the statistics of the current quarter.  The revenue received from
the deficiency was needed to increase the current dollar yield of the
district.

Another administrator will order in 5000 cases which are known to have
poor tax potential in order to pump productivity statistics.  There
are other administrators who will not condone such behavior, but they
cannot openly condemn it.  Instead they turn silently away -- seeing
nothing, hearing nothing, knowing nothing.  Electing to become the
target of their more powerful brethren, these timid administrators
close ranks to form a wall of protection around the more mighty.  This
policy of containment creates a culture of deceit.

I once asked a branch chief why he had lied about a trivial matter
concerning upper-management policy.  This was only after the branch
chief had been exposed in the lie.  He responded that it was his
program to form a buffer between management and base-line employees.
Problems must never go up.  Policy must never come down.  In other
words, correct information is never transmitted upward or downward,
and truth is never free to flow in any direction.  Loyal but inept
employees will be protected and even promoted.  Critical but effective
employees risk harassment, demotion and dismissal.

Character assassination of these outspoken employees is normal.  Other
employees who participate in the attack on the outspoken employee will
be rewarded; a coveted assignment, a promotion.  Management has the
tools and power to get what it wishes.  The outspoken employee will be
ostracized and attacked on all fronts.  If his integrity cannot be
impugned, every effort will be made to destroy his work product.
Recourse to the offices of inspection or EEO for that employee are
useless.  Both agencies seldom act independently from but rather as
arms of the Service administrators.

If acts of alleged physical menace were charged in two separate
instances, one an incident between two bargaining unit employees and
the other incident where a bargaining unit employee was alleged the
victim of an administrator, Inspection will not investigate the
incident where the charges were alleged against the administrator.  It
will investigate alleged charges brought against the bargaining unit
employee in the other incident.  If an EEO complaint is brought either
against an outspoken employee or by an outspoken employee,
administration will get involved to the detriment of the outspoken
employee.  Strong efforts will be made by management to imply that the
outspoken employee is the offending party.  If the EEO complaint is
leveled against the outspoken employee, management will immediately
reassign the outspoken employee, sending out an implied signal there
is truth to the charges leveled against the employee.

When an EEO complaint is brought by an outspoken employee against a
supervisor, it is usually because that supervisor has been harassing
and derogating the employee for being outspoken.  Management will make
every effort to hinder, impede and deep-six the charges.  The charged
employee will receive visible sympathy and be given career-enhancing
assignments, implying his innocence.  There can be no relief to the
employee victim of IRS harassment except to step into federal court.
If the employee is not strong enough to fight retaliation of
victimization, the consequences can be dire; dismissal, alcoholism and
even death.

A manager placed a mocking poster of a moronic character on his wall
which had a crude title.  Onto this poster, the manager placed the
name of an employee whom he disliked because he was vocal.  The
manager went undisciplined.  The employee, so degraded and vilified,
died of a heart attack.  Within the Manhattan district, there's even
been a suicide by a bargaining unit employee as a result of harassment
by management.

A dual standard is used in disciplining management employees and
bargaining unit employees for similar breaches of the rules of
conduct.  A joint IRS-NTEU study concluded that bargaining unit
minority employees routinely receive harsher discipline for minor
infractions of the rules of conduct.  A Manhattan district
administrator publicly embarrassed the Service when arrested for
violation of a civil statute.  The arrest was splashed across the
media.  The behavior of this administrator was an enormous breach of
the rules of conduct for not satisfying in good faith obligations,
including all (just?) financial obligations that are imposed by law.
That administrator was never discharged and is now in a superior
position.  A bargaining unit employee would have been dismissed if his
salary was garnished and not sent on a career-enhancing detail to a
superior position, as was another Manhattan district executive
employee.

In the matter that I've just described, is it not easier for an
employee to abandon critical thought, relinquish sound reasoning and
suspend ethical judgment and surrender to the lie?  Within the IRS
work force, as splendid talents lie dormant, novocained by the
outrages of management, Stepford employees are arising.

When the Service is caught in unethical acts, public apologies will be
made and lip service given to new principles and concepts.  The
Service is incapable of understanding and absorbing any principle or
concept that cannot be reduced to a statistic, a number or a digit.
Management needs to be rehabilitated.  A channel must be put in place
that will ensure that the old bureaucracy and its old ideas are swept
aside.  Risks must be taken for the issue-oriented creativity to
endure.  If not, always there will coexist customer, taxpayer victims
and employee victims.  And there will continue a run on the moral bank
by the IRS.

Is it not a sad irony that all nations of the world look to the United
States as a model of democracy, for guidance in the establishment of
freedoms and human rights, yet the IRS, as an agency of that
government, grants its administrators such a liberal, totalitarian
hand?

Not long ago, when Commissioner Rossotti visited the Manhattan
district, no message of his visit was sent to the general population
of employees because the district had need to control the image it
presented to the new commissioner.  The image that that district
wished to show was one of focus, productivity and harmony.  As the
commissioner watched and listened, selected employees told tales of
great accomplishments.  Hidden in back rooms were the ineptness and
the discord.  It is not that Commissioner Rossotti chose to see the
district through rose-colored glasses.  It is that Commissioner
Rossotti was deliberately led down an impoverished road -- (inaudible)
-- and only the sides that faced the road painted white.  The
Manhattan district was on a mission to sell their piece of real estate
as prime.  The commissioner was prevented from seeing past the facade.
If the commissioner would learn and understand the truth about the
Manhattan district, let him put on simple raiment, enter the district
unattended, rewalk down that road and talk to ordinary employees as if
a fellow traveler.

As my testimony draws to an end, I would like to raise some reasonable
questions.  If one were to multiply the approximate revenue lost due
to the injudicious actions of managers to the benefit of large
taxpayers in the first two examples that I cited -- $24 million and $1
million -- by similarly acting managers in each district, in each
region of the country, how much less revenue would a practical person
determine that to be -- $1 billion, $2 billion, more?  If one were to
multiply the economic hardship, emotional damage and mental stress
placed on each small taxpayer in each state throughout the nation --
(inaudible) -- unfairly by the Service into tax deficiency in order to
fulfill policies and quotas of administrators, would a humane person
even be able to value the cost?  In conclusion, I should like to read
an excerpt from a recent court case where a small taxpayer had the
gumption to bring an action against the IRS for violation of its
rights.  The court awarded actual damages for mental stress, emotional
damages and humiliation, as well as punitive damages to the taxpayer.
It reads, "The conduct of our nation's affairs always demand that
public servants discharge their duties under the Constitution and laws
of this republic with fairness, in a proper spirit of subservience to
the people whom they are sworn to serve.  "Public servants cannot be
arbitrarily selective in their treatment of citizens, dispensing
equity to those who please them and withholding it from those who do
not.  Respect for the law can only be fostered if citizens believe
that those responsible for implementing and enforcing the law are
themselves acting in conformity with the law.

By this award, the court gives notice to the IRS that reprehensible
abuse of its authority by any one of its employees .............