Two years ago, Republicans in Congress tried to let lobbyists for big polluters rewrite environmental laws behind closed doors. Not surprisingly, many people were appalled. But now Republican leaders are back with a similar notion for the Internal Revenue Service. They want to put corporate special interests in charge of the nation's tax-collecting agency.

In other words, they want the foxes to run the henhouse.

Next week the House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on I.R.S. restructuring, and a House vote could come  soon after.

Under the proposed legislation, a new nine-member, part-time board of directors, made up of seven corporate executives and one member each from the Treasury Department and the I.R.S. employees' union, would take over management of the I.R.S. The new board's duties would include hiring and firing the commissioner of internal revenue and deciding how to allocate the I.R.S. budget.

The board could decide, for instance, that the I.R.S. was devoting too much energy to cracking down on corporate tax cheats and should shift its attention to individuals. Or it might move tax-enforcement resources away from multinational corporations and toward smaller companies.

The board's corporate members would be appointed by the President and subject to Senate confirmation. Given the state of campaign finance, it's not hard to imagine the types of people who would get the seats.  And it's easy to predict their likely self-interest, given that as much as a third of the $180 billion a year collected in corporate taxes stems from I.R.S. audits.

The new vision for tax collection comes from the Commission on Restructuring the I.R.S., led by Senator Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat, and Representative Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican. Most commission members were appointed by Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Senate majority leader, Trent Lott of Mississippi, so naturally the panel ended up with a pro-business, anti-government tilt.

The commission was supposed to focus on the serious problems the I.R.S. has had in putting its computer modernization program into effect, but after hearing from the official now in charge of that effort, the panel decided things were finally on the right track. Left with nothing to do, the panel filled the vacuum with its radical proposal to turn the I.R.S. over to corporate control--purportedly to bring in some private "expertise.

Senator Kerrey argues that the  corporate members of the board would be little different from other Presidential appointees. But this ignores that the board members would work simultaneously for the Government (part time) and their corporations (most of the time). As the commission dissenters noted, "A person with a full-time private sector job simply does not have the sensitivities--or the insulation from special interests--of a Government official whose full-time, sworn responsibility is to uphold and enforce the law."

Don Alexander, the former I.R.S. Commissioner who resisted efforts by President Richard Nixon to use the I.R.S. to attack "enemies," puts it more succinctly, calling the plan a "recipe for conflicts of interest and politicization of the I.R.S."

Unfortunately, the plan has gained steam among Republicans in the House. But much as they may hate the I.R.S., they ought to reflect that the tax collection henhouse belongs to all of us, not just to the corporate foxes.

Back To Reports