The Leaner, Meaner, IRS Has More Power Now And Is More Angry

According to the new Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, the infamous Internal Revenue Service will be stepping up its efforts to collect what they are owed as taxpayers complete their 2009 returns. That’s right. Today’s IRS is even meaner and more powerful than ever before. According to the IRS, billions of dollars in income tax assessments have not been paid by American citizens. If they are not collected, yearly taxes that go unpaid will continue to accumulate each year with penalty and interest charges. These all ball up together to create an inventory of “tax debts” which approached a massive three hundred billion at the end of the fiscal year.

As many of us are painfully aware, the IRS has a complicated process to collect on taxes that have gone unpaid by getting in touch with taxpayers through telephone calls, foreboding notices, and in person. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, himself an accused tax evader estimates that a total of three hundred and thirty two million dollars will be devoted to the new IRS enforcement efforts. That includes one hundred and twenty eight million dollars to add about eight hundred new IRS employees to go after tax evaders.


In these hard economic times where even Uncle Sam owes a massive amount of money, this all makes sense. “The US Treasury is desperate for cash and the IRS has been informed to get tougher in collecting old debts” says Anthony E. Parent, founder of IRS Medic. And they mean business. The IRS has hired a number of new and very forceful Revenue Officers to come to people’s houses, businesses, or even crash a Rotary Club meeting or two in hopes of finding suspected delinquent tax payers. Parent warns us that these new employees may be overly aggressive in hopes of impressing their superiors and obtaining a promotion.

For the first time in American history, taxpayers’ primary residences can now be harvested by the new, lean, mean IRS. They were not able to seize retirement accounts in the past, but this too, has changed. “The IRS is getting bolder” says Parent. “They can and will clear out a taxpayers entire retirement savings.”

The moral? Anybody that owes money to the IRS needs to take a proactive stance not wait for the IRS to come and get them! “We have had clients who have approached us after the IRS has gone after them. This makes helping them a great deal harder” he says. “If you get help early in the game, you have more options. Never ignore the IRS.”