cover image The Power to Destroy: How the IRS Became America's Most Powerful Agency, How Congress is Taking Control, and What You Can Do to Protect Your

The Power to Destroy: How the IRS Became America's Most Powerful Agency, How Congress is Taking Control, and What You Can Do to Protect Your

William V. Roth, Jr., William V Roth. Atlantic Monthly Press, $23 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-87113-748-7

One has to admire Roth's dogged investigation of the government agency Americans' love to hate: the IRS. The result of Senate hearings that began in September 1997, this book packs the choicest cases of IRS abuse into one digestible but occasionally repetitious volume. Roth, senior U.S. senator from Delaware, is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee; Nixon is his executive assistant. They claim that Roth's investigation uncovered ""an agency in crisis, caused by a breakdown in management, a lack of accountability... and a tax code so confusing that even the foremost tax experts are left angry, bewildered, and prone to mistakes."" Identifying quotas that, they say, encourage overzealous collection efforts, inequities that render innocent spouses liable for tax-cheating mates and an agency ""that is shrouded in more secrecy than the CIA,"" the authors diagnose the problem. They argue that the growth of what they see as an arrogant, arbitrary and, at times, malicious agency proved possible because it ""had largely been left alone by Congress."" Their informed analysis--filled with selected quotations from IRS employees and victims--highlights the need for checks and balances, legislative oversight of administrative agencies and controls over unchecked power at every level of government. (Apr.)