Which is Worse - Al Qaeda or the IRS?

According to this page, the IRS investigates approximately 4000 people per year for tax crime, with 2700 prosecutions, and 2100 convictions. The World Trade Center terrorist attack had 2974 victims.

Translating, more Americans have their lives ruined by the IRS each year, than by Al Qaeda.

If your father is kidnapped by the IRS, that's just as bad as if he were murdered by a terrorist. In some ways it's worse, because with a terrorist attack you can collect life insurance. When you go to jail, your wife and children are SOL.

If the IRS prosecutes you and you're acquitted, you still don't recover your legal fees. You aren't reimbursed for the time and expense and stress of the trial. State bureaucrats have an incentive to make a trial as long and stressful as possible.

Being investigated by the IRS is pretty stressful, even if there's no prosecution.

Suppose that there's n people working in the IRS enforcement division, and each is expected to prosecute m cases per year. Then, there will be n*m prosecutions per year, no matter what the merit. The tax law is so complicated that practically anyone could be found in violation.

Some IRS prosecutions, such as that of Irwin Schiff and Robert Kahre, are politically motivated. The tax law allows State insiders to crack down on any small business owner they want to terrorize.

The burden of IRS tax audits hurts small business owners more than executives at large corporations.

If you're a small business owner and your customers pay you in cash, then there are plenty of ways to avoid reporting your income. This leads to confrontations between the IRS and the small business owner. If you're found in violation, you could lose your business or go to jail or pay incredibly huge fines.

If you're an executive at a large corporation, you have an army of accountants. If there's a problem, you can claim "The accountants did the tax forms. I'm not responsible." The accountants can claim "I just work here. I'm not responsible." Unless there's flagrant fraud, nobody suffers any negative consequences. The cost of any fine is paid out of the corporation's assets, which isn't the executive's own money anyway. A small business owner pays the full cost of the IRS audit himself.

Even if you've never been audited by the IRS, fear of the IRS causes many people to be compliant with the tax code. You pay the cost of income taxes and the cost of tax compliance, even if State bureaucrats have never personally assaulted you.

By cultivating a culture of terrorism, most people are bullied into paying. By having outrageously huge criminal fines and penalties for tax evasion, people are bullied into paying. State insiders know that tax collection is the most important function of the government.

Sending someone to jail for income tax evasion is pure terrorism. Tax evasion is not a crime in the sense of natural law, because tax evasion doesn't injure someone else. Sending someone to jail for 10-20 years is almost as evil as murdering them. State bureaucrats aren't outright killing them, but they're still stealing a huge chunk of the victim's life.

If you really think about it, the IRS is a much more dangerous terrorist organization than Al Qaeda. More Americans have their lives ruined by the IRS than by Al Qaeda. Most people have been brainwashed into believing that the IRS is legitimate and necessary. The perceived legitimacy of the State and State tax collectors is precisely what makes them so dangerous.