>That was sarcasm.

And so Poe's Law[0] strikes again, I guess.

>This sub-thread contains statements such as "Nobody goes to prison over tax errors unless it's deliberate fraud" and "Only if you're Al Capone[0] or similar". It is my personal opinion that those statements are roughly equivalent to "if you're not guilty then you have nothing to hide". You may or may not agree with that comparison, that's fine.

Since I'm the one that mentioned Al Capone, my point wasn't that. At all.

Rather, that at least AFAICT, IRS agents mostly have the accountant/used car salesman vibe rather than an AR-15 wielding SWAT team member ready to to beat you with their Shillelagh if you mouth off.

>The idea that the IRS only prosecutes and wins convictions against the guilty is naive and foolish based on my lived experiences. Other people have had other experiences. They are fortunate and privileged.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I never said anything even approaching that.

While the IRS does have a Criminal Investigations[1] department, IRS agents are not law enforcement. They do not have the power of arrest, nor can their actions result in jail.

>The difference in opinion between the police and IRS is interesting. Police are not popular these days. Some people even believe All Cops Are Bastards. I would encourage people to extend whatever opinion they hold on the police, prosecutors, and the judicial system to cover IRS agents as well.

I'm old. When I was young, there were many street gangs in my home town and the police were just considered the biggest and best armed gang.

Over the past 40 years, some changes for the better have been made, but not enough to disabuse me of that notion WRT police.

As far as IRS agents are concerned, they are a whole different animal. They are not police. They do not arrest people. They do not handcuff people and "rough them up."

What they do is attempt to collect unpaid taxes. Whether they do that fairly is probably a crap shoot, like most civil servants who deal with the public.

The IRS has broad powers to attach/seize assets in recovering unpaid taxes, but revenue agents are (at least AFAIK) paper pushers and not jack-booted paramilitary thugs.

My experience with an IRS revenue officer was unpleasant, as action was started to attach some of my assets. Even though the "tax debt" assessed wasn't valid (as I mentioned in my initial reply[2] to you.

That said, once I addressed the issues, I was able to resolve them without issue and, not only did I not have to pay anything, I received a check from the IRS.

I'm sure my experience isn't the same as that of others, and I'm sure that IRS agents can (and do) make things quite unpleasant for some folks. But "thugs"[3] seems an inapt term.

If you don't like the police, prosecutors, judicial system and the IRS, I suggest you take appropriate action (activism, voting, etc.) to change how those institutions operate.

You certainly won't get a lot of argument from me about it, but your hyperbolic tone ("bloodthirsty thugs"? please.) seems a little shrill, IMHO.

I'm not telling you what to say, think or do, just providing my personal opinions and experiences as well as my impression of your exposition of yours.

I expect you will continue to disagree with me and that's fine. I have no special expertise or knowledge about the IRS and its revenue officers other than my own experience, so I'm sure YMMV.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Revenue_Service#Crimi...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32760935

[3] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thug