Federal Tax Dollars Hard at Work

I love stories about the idiocy of bureaucracies. Here's an excellent example from the Sacramento Bee by Bob Shallit. The key bit is:

IRS visits Sacramento carwash in pursuit of 4 cents

Arriving at Harv's Metro Car Wash in midtown Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. "They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending," says Harv's owner, Aaron Zeff.

The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to Zeff's on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was ... 4 cents.

Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv's with an obligation of $202.35.

Go read the whole article to get the details. Oh, wait a second, there are no details because:

IRS spokesman Jesse Weller isn't commenting "due to privacy and disclosure laws."

Yeah, I'm sure Aaron Zeff is really sweating the fact that some skeletons might come out of the closet to explain those missing 4 cents.

My puzzle: Even with the lopsided tax penalty, does it make sense to send out two agents (roughly $100/hour, plus company car, plus "expenses") to collect this bill? Let's see... to collect $202 they spent at least $350. With that kind of "business sense" the federal government can run the United States into the ground in no time!

What bugs me is that under Bush enforcement backed off the ultra-rich and focused on the "little people" (the ones that the infamously Leona Helmsley so accurately point out are the only ones who really pay any taxes in the United States). Is the Obama administration following that same tactic? I thought he would put the focus back on the "big fish" who have cheated and lied for years and years. Guess I was wrong. Chalk that up as another Obama disappointment.

In Canada when you fill out your tax form, the last line is the amount owed to you or from you, and the government puts a note saying that if there is a $2 difference either way, forget it! They won't collect anything below $2 and they won't refund anything less than $2. It isn't worth the cost of collecting or refunding. Obviously this kind of "sensible government" hasn't been picked up by the more "sophisticated" big government types down south of here.