Your tax dollars at work

IRS horror stories have been around forever, but in this time where some of the biggest tax cheats error-prone people are now in the President's cabinet, stories like this take on an added emphasis where I just have to do this:

According to the Sacramento Bee, two dark-suited IRS agents showed up outside the door of Harv's Metro Car Wash to collect on the massive debt that the owner (a man not named Harv, but Aaron Zeff, and isn't that convenient?) owed the Federal Government.  Seriously, if this horrible tax cheat had just paid his taxes on time, this whole "federal deficit" thing would be a thing of the past!

At least you would think that, considering the relative harshness with which they came down on him.  Why do I say "relative?"

Because he owed four cents.

That's right, he owed four cents, so the IRS sent the suits after him!

Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv's with an obligation of $202.35."

These unpaid taxes were supposedly from 2006, though he has a letter from the IRS dated October 22, 2009 stating that he "has filed all required returns and addressed any balances due.

Surely the IRS has better things to do then go after people like this?  And how did those penalties accrue if he only owed 4 cents to begin with?

As Mark Steyn says, "If they'd subjected Secretary Geithner to those rates on what he owed, we could have wiped out the deficit."