Mr. Chairman, Senators, thank you for allowing me to come before you this morning to provide an accounting of activities within the Internal Revenue Service. My name is Jennifer Long. I am currently a Revenue Agent with the IRS.

Please be assured that I do not take any pleasure in what I am about to say. I regret that the untenable conditions permeating the IRS have compelled me to this point. I am here today, along with my colleagues, in hopes that by exposing some of the unauthorized, but tolerated, procedures that I personally have witnessed by members of the IRS Management, congressional oversight will bring a positive change. I can personally attest to the use of egregious tactics used by IRS Revenue Agents which are encouraged by members of the IRS Management. These tactics -- which appear nowhere in the IRS Manual -- are used to extract unfairly assessed taxes from taxpayers, literally ruining families, lives, and businesses -- all unnecessarily and sometimes illegally.

The IRS will often pursue a taxpayer who is viewed to be vulnerable. To the IRS, vulnerability can be based on a perception that the taxpayer has limited formal education, has suffered a personal tragedy, is having a financial crisis, or may not necessarily have a solid grasp of their legal rights. Please understand, many agents are encouraged by management to pursue tax assessments that have no basis in tax law from individuals who simply can't fight back. However, if that taxpayer does object or complain, every effort will be made by the IRS to run up their tax assessment, deplete their financial resources and force them to capitulate to IRS demands.

The IRS's Mission of Examination states, "..Reduce noncompliance by identifying and cost effectively allocating resources to those returns most in need of examination and taxpayer contact..." As of late, we seem to be auditing only poor people. The current IRS Management does not believe anyone in this country can possibly live on less than $20,000 per year, insisting anyone below that level must be cheating by understating their true income. Currently, in a typical case assigned for audit, there are no assets, no signs of wealth -- no evidence that would support a suspicion of higher, unreported income. So, when the IRS does initiate an audit on these people, these individuals are already only one short step away from being on the street. Clearly, such actions do not encourage or promote voluntary compliance, even in legitimate cases. Before we began to ruin their lives, these people were at least paying something. However, because of the tactics used in auditing and condoned by the IRS Management, abject fear compels many of these individuals to go completely underground and, as a direct result, pay nothing at all.

In other cases, IRS Management can determine that a particular taxpayer is simply someone "to get." In other words, they become a target of the IRS. Management will go about fabricating evidence against that taxpayer to demonstrate that he, or she, owes more taxes than was originally claimed. Clearly, it goes without saying that evidence should never, ever, be fabricated. It also goes without saying that any evidence used against a taxpayer should be examined first, before guilt or innocence is established. Not the other way around.

In certain instances, the IRS Management has even employed its authority to intimidate the actual taxpayers into fabricating evidence against its own IRS employees. In return for their compliance, the taxpayer may be offered a reduction in their taxes or a "no change case." I also know that Management uses this same power to extort fabricated evidence from IRS employees against their own colleagues by offering cash awards, promotions, and lightened work loads as rewards for their compliance. The unfavorable information assembled by Management against its own employees is used against those whom the IRS has identified as someone who is unsupportive of its unwieldy methods of collection.

The IRS Inspection Division, which is somewhat akin to Internal Affairs in a Police Department, has also been used as a tool by Management to harass and intimidate its employees. However, complaints to the IRS Inspection Division about possible Management misconduct are routinely ignored, but often result in retaliation against the IRS employee reporting the problem. This is due to the fact that employees identities are disclosed when the Inspection Division reports the infraction to Management.

The IRS Mission Statement states, "The purpose of the Internal Revenue Service is to collect the proper amount of tax revenue at the least cost; serve the public by continually improving the quality of our products and services; and perform in a manner warranting the highest degree of public confidence in our integrity, efficiency and fairness." I have actually witnessed IRS Management manipulate income tax return figures just to increase their office or division collection statistics! It did this through various means including not permitting valid changes in a tax return that would favor the taxpayer. To allow those changes would wipe out the assessment placed by the IRS and run counter to the Management's collection numbers.

For those who choose to fight, it automatically guarantees a significant financial and emotional toll.

Mr. Chairman - the American taxpayers are not stupid. They clearly recognize unfairness. Under present IRS Management, it has become so distorted that when reviewing a tax case it is now our job to "stick it" to the taxpayer, rather than determine a substantially correct tax assessment for that taxpayer. In the past, the latter was our job. If our present task has changed, then the IRS Mission Statement needs to be revamped to reflect what the Service's current mission really is. And God help the taxpayers.

The IRS Mission Statement of the IRS Examination Division states, "...Examination supports the mission of the Service by...encouraging the correct reporting by taxpayers of income..."

Yet, in reality, when valid changes could be made by the IRS on a taxpayer's return that favor that taxpayer, we are instructed not to make those changes.

However, on the other hand, I know of certain IRS employees that have been instructed by IRS Management not to conduct audits of particular taxpayers who happen to be personal friends of someone in IRS Management.

Far too often, the IRS Management automatically assumes that everyone is a criminal. When a taxpayer comes to the IRS to negotiate a tax payment issue in good faith, they are subjected to provocative behavior on the part of the IRS in order to "set them off." Management will then use the taxpayer's response as proof that they are, in fact, a reactionary saying, "See, this person's a troublemaker, a real hot head." Based on this pretext, the IRS can then justify taking severe action contrary to the law in order to pursue the collection. The immediate and direct consequence of these actions is the deprivation of the taxpayer's lawful rights.

I look forward to your questions and I hope, that in some way, I will have assisted you in restoring the IRS to a level of integrity that will regain the respect of the American people.