OPINION:
Just in case further evidence is needed of the damage done to our nation and our hapless people by the Internal Revenue Service, it comes through the news that at some level or levels the terror-inspiring institution targeted Tea Party and related groups for scrutiny and investigation (“Holder: IRS probe will be national, ’dispassionate,’” Web, May 15). This phenomenon should be alarming to the American people, regardless of one’s political stripes.
It is bad enough that the convoluted, inane tax code, which extends to tens of thousands of pages, ties the nation into knots, rendering us the laughingstock of the world. But to use this powerful agency against those the administration perceives to be enemies is something one would expect in North Korea, Iran or China, not our “land of liberty” and free speech.
The IRS has grown into an organization that may act in whatever manner it wishes and is feared by the American people. Its supreme reign must be brought to an end. The best way to do that is to swap the income tax for a tax on consumption, a levy that is easy to calculate and simple to remit. The lobbyists that would come out of the woodwork to fight for the preservation of our Rube Goldberg-style tax code must be smited.
How much more evidence is needed to prove that we are subjected to a system of taxation that is merely a miserable and mystifying hodgepodge?
OREN M. SPIEGLER
Upper St. Clair, Pa.
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