Every year the 89,000 employees of the Internal Revenue Service attempt to enforce the tax laws for well over 200 million taxpayers. Obviously this is impossible and taxpayers could ignore the law with near impunity. Yet, they don’t. Somehow the IRS persuades the vast majority of the taxpayers to pay up. If the IRS said that it would be inhumane to prosecute tax scofflaws because they have children that need to eat and that most tax scofflaws are good people who have run into hard times, what would happen? What would happen is that the population of tax scofflaws would explode. The tax scofflaws would become shrouded in moral legitimacy. Any attempt by the IRS to step up enforcement would be seen as brutal oppression against good people. The IRS uses a carrot and stick approach. The tax withholding is rigged so that most people will get a refund. That encourages them to file their taxes as soon as possible so as to get the tax refund. People who aren’t toeing...(Read Full Article)