The IRS decides to audit Ralph, and summoned him to the IRS office. The IRS auditor is not surprised when Ralph shows up with his attorney. The auditor says, "Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I'm not sure the IRS finds that believable." "I'm a great gambler, and I can prove it," says Ralph. "How about a demonstration?" The auditor thinks for a moment and said, "Okay. Go ahead." Ralph says, "I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye." The auditor thinks a moment and says, "No way! It's a bet." Ralph removes his glass eye and bites it. The auditor's jaw drops. Ralph says, "Now, I'll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye." The auditor can tell Ralph isn't blind, so he takes the bet. Ralph removes his dentures and bites his good eye. The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with Ralph's attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous. "Want to go double or nothing?" Ralph asks. "I'll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between." The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there's no way this guy can manage that stunt, so he agrees again. Ralph stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can't make the stream reach the wastebasket on other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the desk. The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win. But Ralph's attorney moans and puts his head in his hands. "Are you okay?" the auditor asks. "Not really," says the attorney. "This morning, when Ralph told me he'd been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty thousand dollars that he could come in here and p*ss all over your desk and that you'd be happy about it."

So, do people rate them low because they're ineffective, or because they're effective?

If we did a way with the current tax system and replaced it with a flat tax with no loop holes or exemptions, just think about how much money the goverment could save by reducing the IRS by at least 75%. Depending on the rate of the tax the country should be able to operated with out ever going in the red.

The tax code creates a lot of the problems with the IRS. One of the few things I agree with W on is that the tax code needs to be simplified. That being said, the IRS is fighting a losing battle. They will never be able to stem the most sophisticated tax evaders, due to limited resources. Contrary to some reviewers here, the income tax actually is constitutional, I believe specifically the 13th amendment. A national sales tax would be the better alternative, though that would still require some agency to oversee sales tax collection. However, that agency would clearly be smaller and less intrusive than the current IRS.

IRS = an idea whose time has come and gone.

Just a note to those of you who share my own opinion that the IRS should be dissolved and that our government penalizes the working people in our society. Please don't vote for Kerry (or any other Democrat). Republicans are certainly not without issue but they allow the working people among us to keep more of our hard earned $. Also, please support the fair tax bill (sign the online petition at www.fairtax.org).

The IRS is not outdated....It should NEVER have been formed in the first place. To have a government entity such as the IRS in America is worse than wrong. The IRS is an intrusive, Marxist, anti-American INSULT to EVERY good citizen of our great nation. Perhaps worst of all, it is allowed and supported despite the fact that its gross UNCONSTITUTIONALITY can be seen by a blind man! (perhaps one who has been ROBBED blind by the IRS!) It is time for a completely new tax system, a FLAT NATIONAL SALES TAX!! Short of a revolt, I see this as the only way to stop these bureaucratic socialist CRIMINALS for good!

They're merely doing the devil's (government's) bidding.

An organization like this should never exist in a country like America. I knew of a woman who made her living working for the IRS. She quit her job, because as a Christian she could no longer be a part of a group that destroyed people like the IRS does. Columnist Joseph Sobran made a good point the other day when he said that a citizen would have to commit a very serious crime in order to receive a penalty as heavy as the average worker has to pay in yearly taxes.

I don't mind paying my share, but just what exactly my share is, is anyone's guess. I'm still trying to figure out how I can work a full time job, have a good chunk withheld from my pay, and then wind up paying more on April 15th, while some people can draw food stamps and w.i.c., have less than a couple of hundred bucks a year withheld from their checks and then get back four or five THOUSAND dollars. You know how they do it? They have a whole houseful of kids, that's how. I think the I.R.S. should quit rewarding all the people who don't know how to use birth control and then maybe we'll all get a little tax relief. Is it going to happen? Of course not! Just let them keep having kids so they too can grow up and get on welfare and food stamps and be perfectly healthy and too lazy to get a job, and then we'll pay them another big wad of cash on tax day. Sounds great to me! Sheesh! I'm gonna go rate some movies or something. This is giving me a headache.

Shut em down. Income taxes are a crime against working people and the Founding Fathers would be appalled at such a concept.

Abolish it.

Abolish the IRS, abolish the income tax. All we need is a sales tax.

I know we all hate the IRS, but they have a state of the art, very-helpful web-site. They also get back to you on questions in a very professional manner. I'm proud of our country to have such an IRS that is up with the times.

In the business world, it is said that people love the bankers because they tell you how much money you have and the accountants are hated because they tell you how much money you owe the government. I think that the IRS has its excesses; it is a governmental agency that really does and can abuse the citizenry to the point where you would think that it is a communist gestapo that is after you. Ask anyone who has been audited or has had tax problems. The income tax system in this country could definitely be a lot simpler, no doubt about it. There are too many loopholes in the system which accountants really love because it keeps them extra busy. The progressive taxation system is, in my view, unfair to everyone and it does not necessarily guarantee that the government will receive a steady flow of income. A flat tax scheme would probably work a lot better. Everyone should pay a 10% flat tax, no loopholes, no complicated tax code. Everyone pay that amount. This will decomplicate the job of the IRS to the point were they will not border on the totalitarian.

Can you be in your right mind to support the people who take your money? You work and they take a large amount of it. It is an neccasary evil. If you need it, at least do it well. These guys seem to know their stuff pretty well.

sure we all hate the IRS as much as they hate themselves (and act like they love themselves). but for two summers in a row, i worked at my county dept. of parks&rec, organizing info sheets of thousands of kids for summer camps. that was hard enough as it was, i can't picture trying to keep the records of 270 million people organized and figuring out how to deal with the problems that surface. i'm sure the people really do suck, because nobody else wants to take such a job.

How anyone with a conscience can spend their days confiscating the property of others is a mystery to me. The current tax rate can only be described as confiscatory. We have been reduced to slaves. We do not really own our property. If you think I'm wrong, try not paying your real estate taxes. Then you'll find out who really owns the property.

The US has one of the most effective tax collection systems in the world, and unfortunately, these guys deserve the credit. If you have spent any time in other countries, you may have noticed that tax evasion is rampant. Otherwise upstanding citizens will choose not to pay taxes, simply because it is so common to evade. For all of their faults, the relentless IRS gets the job done - to the benefit of all Americans.

Here is one you have to be careful with and make sure you rate the organization and not their purpose. Sure, I hate paying taxes, but the IRS is not charged with taxation only the monitoring and collection of those levied by the Government. For the most part the IRS appears to have continued to evolve and make advances with new technology. Their web site is very informative and they have met the needs of the electronic age by using electronic filing, refund, and payment systems. For the most part I am impressed with their ability to process millions of tax returns and send out refunds in a relatively short time frame. Although I have heard of the nightmares of a tax audit, I have not experienced one personally so I cannot really comment on that. I will say that I have a fairly in-depth knowledge of the tax laws and accounting practices, if you play by the rules you should not have that much to worry about anyway. They are still a Government agency and filled with the typical Government employee mentalities so I can’t rank them very high but give them some credit for attempting to keep pace.

I wasted several years of my life doing clerical working for these ingrates before I got my degree and escaped. They are as sleazy as you think they are and they appreciate nothing. There are actually agents who enjoy garnishing wages and seizing property - they even laugh about it. On top of that, if anything goes wrong, they scramble to blame someone below them so fast it would make your head swim. Hate being dunned by them every year? Well, don't ever work for them because, like some of the other lower species, they tend to devour their own. Hideous people, horrible memories and nasty little agency that deserves its reputation.