Our unfair tax system must be revisited | Letter

As a former official with the Criminal Division of the Internal Revenue Service, as well as a student in federal tax policy, I must thank you for publishing Mark Love’s excellent op-ed (“It’s the tax code, stupid!,” Aug. 18).

Let’s be candid — no one wants to pay more than he/she should and certainly we don’t condone those who cheat to pay less. But in today’s world we have an ineffectual Congress that is unwilling to do its job and write/pass legislation that is fair to an economic public. The system presently favors the rich at the expense of the poor. The present bandwagon speaks of fearing 50,000 more enforcement personnel (actually several thousand would be sufficient for criminal matters — with the remaining focusing on civil mistakes, and misunderstanding of the tax provisions).

But the nation voted to install a leader who has feared the reach of the IRS because of liberties taken by his business empire over many years. Even in the Watergate era, we had a president who would threaten his imagined enemies by submitting allegations of IRS abuse and encourage tax compliance as punishment. Clearly, the tax system needs coherence, fairness and simplicity — but placing the higher percentage burden upon poorer folks is unfair.

Stephen Myerson
Portland

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Tagged: letter to the editor