The IRS Mission

Yesterday I received my 1040 tax forms and instructions in the mail. I found this odd for two reasons:

1. They normally arrive at the start of January.
2. I e-filed my tax return to them over a week ago.

But since I work with tax returns many hours a week now, I took a few seconds to thumb through the booklet to see what was there. And I happened to find a statement called The IRS Mission. It reads:

Provide America's taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities and by applying the tax law with integrity and fairness to all.

Really...I'm not making this up. To the credit of the IRS, their website, www.irs.gov, is actually quite helpful.

Our tax laws, however, are the work of Congress—the IRS merely has the responsibility to see that the tax laws are enforced properly. Don't like the tax laws? Vote for Huckabee (he mentioned yesterday that he wants to put the IRS out of business and replace the income tax with a national sales tax) and/or contact your congressman.