Letter to the editor: U.S. would quickly fail as a country without IRS
I was listening to the radio (I do not watch much TV). And I heard something I had heard before that the GOP said if they get in power again, they will cut funding to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). I did some research and found this to be so. My question is why in the world would you want to cut off the arm that keeps us with some money in the bank? Without the IRS we would quickly fail as a country. Now I can understand making sure the IRS is equal in its treatment of all people. Ensuring the rich pay its share of taxes. Because the rich are the main cheaters in paying taxes, not the little folks. I call little anyone making under $100,000 a year.
The only ones who would benefit from such a move would be the cheaters and crooks who would steal from the rest of us. As a conservative, I would like to keep as much of my money as possible, but I understand I need to help pay for the military, roads, bridges and other parts of the government. The thing I don't understand is why would the GOP want to get rid of or severely cut the IRS budget. Only crooks would want to help other crooks.
When I worked for the S.C. Department of Corrections, every tax season my team would find evidence of inmates filing false tax returns of under $5,000 hoping the IRS would not detect it. Most times they did detect the false form, but sometimes the inmate won and was sent the money. The inmates were hoping the IRS would be too busy in pursuit of the multi-million-dollar tax cheat and let the small amount slip by. We did have one inmate who was able to deceive the IRS into paying him a million dollars, but he was eventually caught.
There are some things as a people we must have: military, a good police force, a tax system and others, and we must all pay to keep these things in our lives. Or we will fail. So, if some smart GOP person out there could tell me how to get everyone to pay voluntarily without the IRS, I would like to hear about it.
ROBERT JOHNSON
Sumter