PS: I deal with the IRS on behalf of clients all the time, and occasionally I also get the same kind of stupid demands for irrelevant information. The demand is ALWAYS from a lower level IRS employee. The problem is that lower level employees generally are not well trained to use the actual texts of the Internal Revenue Code and Treasury regulations. Their knowledge of "tax law" is based on internal training by fellow IRS employees, and the quality of the training is uneven. It's not that these people are deliberately trying to break the law; they believe they are following the law, as taught to them. Recently I tried to explain to a lower level IRS employee on the phone why she was wrong, and I cited the specific language of a particular Code section. She replied "I don't do tax law." Of course, she DOES do tax law, whether she realizes it or not. It would be nice if all IRS employees "did tax law" correctly. 

 The other day, I received an IRS form letter interpreting a particular statute of limitations point of law incorrectly, based on the repealed wording of a particular Internal Revenue Code provision  wording that hasn't been the law since the year 1958 (when Congress changed it). This IRS letter even directly contradicted the IRS national office official interpretation of the law (and the IRS national office interpretation is the correct one). However, this is not deliberate wrongful behavior on the part of IRS employees. This is systemic incompetence at the IRS. I don't want to overstate the case, but there is quite a bit of systemic incompetence at the IRS. I've been dealing with this for over 20 years.