IRS harassing working-class families?

A host of major corporations haven't paid federal taxes since 1998. Loads of wealthy individuals and businesses abuse offshore tax shelters to evade American tax laws.

You'd think the IRS would bust them like it's going out of style. But welcome to the new IRS - the IRS that emerged under Bush.

This piece in the Seattle Times says the new IRS - instead of auditing wealthy corporations - audits the poor and working class:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2010435946_danny06.html

You read that right: The IRS is going after people who make very little money, using the argument that nobody can make so little money and survive. The IRS assumes they must be working off the books.

Huh? So the IRS thinks anyone who lives below the poverty line is just faking it?

Following these audits, the IRS is charging the working poor back taxes, claiming they owe taxes on money they never made.

What's worse is that each audit costs the IRS as much money as it squeezes out of these working families. So the government isn't even bringing in any more net revenue. This proves the whole thing is about harassment for its own sake.

How did this bullshit start?

The Seattle Times piece points out a little factoid that's long been ignored: The Republicans have called tax credits for the working poor a form of "backdoor welfare" (even though it's not welfare at all). When the Republicans controlled Congress and the White House several years ago, they directed the IRS to step up audits of working families who claimed this credit.

Following this move, those who claimed this credit were over twice as likely as other taxpayers to be audited.

This, my friends, is fascism.

Auditing the poor and working class is designed to remind them of their status and show who's in charge.

Public officials responsible for this directive to the IRS need to be punished.

If tax credits for working families are "backdoor welfare" for the poor, then the Right's capital gains tax cut is "backdoor welfare" for the rich.