The IRS Collection Division attempts to collect delinquent taxes as inexpensively and rapidly as possible. To accomplish this task the IRS makes extensive use of computers. Only when automated methods have failed to collect a tax is the matter assigned to an individual for collection.
And Chicago tax lawyer Robert E. McKenzie, who has defended rich folks claiming losses on everything from deer farms to race horses to yachts, says the Romneys -–despite the fact that Ann Romney’s statements on what dressage has done for her personally suggests lack of profit motive– likely did all the paperwork right and can assert they thought they’d make a profit, even if they never do. “The way I would argue it is `this horse competed in the Olympics and we’ll breed it and make money off the foal’,’’ says McKenzie. “When you’re that rich you can afford to have talented tax advisers.”
On January 11, 2012 National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson released her annual report to Congress, identifying the combination of the IRS’s expanding workload and declining resources as the most serious problem facing taxpayers. The result, the report says, is inadequate taxpayer service, erosion of taxpayer rights, and reduced tax compliance. The Advocate expressed her continuing concern that the IRS’s expanding use of automated processes to adjust tax liabilities is causing harm to taxpayers and recommended that Congress enact a comprehensive Taxpayer Bill of Rights.
