Editorial: Those who have tax debts could get help

Wednesday, July 21, 1999 | 10:13 a.m.

The Internal Revenue Service has long had a well-deserved reputation for being ice cold when it comes to customer relations. But congressional and internal reforms hope to change the way the IRS does business. New IRS rules, which were mandated by Congress, take effect today and are supposed to make it easier for those finding it impossible to pay their full tax bills. Now the IRS will be able to take into account economic hardships, which may make it difficult to pay, when considering whether to lessen a tax bill.

Congress and the IRS have a difficult juggling act in this area. On the one hand you don't want to penalize the hard-working Americans who pay all their taxes by making it easier for others to pay less than their fair share. Yet at the same time by taking an absolutist, hard-line stand you either end up getting nothing at all or placing delinquent taxpayers in such dire straits that they can never hope to pay. These new rules should help strike a reasonable compromise that permits compassion without undermining compliance with tax laws.

archive