One other thing that occurred to me was how much this activity by the IRS reminded me of the actions of the CoDominium Fleet in the early books of Sci-Fi author Jerry Pournelle’s CoDominium series; Like the Fleet in the novels, the IRS is being shorted of funds by a deadlocked Senate (in the books its the ‘Grand Senate’) which has a number of members who would simply abolish the organization if they could. They can’t, but what they can do is throttle back funding.

Lacking funds, the Fleet turns to monopolizing the purchase offworld and transportation of drugs that are then sold in Earth’s ghettos and to selling convicts being shipped from Earth into slavery. In the real world case, one could see the IRS turning to seizures as a means of funding itself, since unlike with an audit it gets to keep most of the money it gains through civil forfeiture. This also has the effect of turning the cost burden away from large companies and the top 25% of the population (who can raise a ruckus with Congress) and shifts it to people less able to resist.

Am I taking an analogy too far? Please reply and let me know.