IRS Enforced Collection- now there is a term that will get your attention. I get certified mail from IRS every day on behalf of clients. Even though I have no tax problems myself, every day I catch myself flipping through that ugly stack just to make sure my name isn't there.When I do get a letter from them about me, as we all sometimes do, shivers run through me like a bolt of lightning.

Fear is the main weapon of the IRS. Just ask anyone with an Internal Revenue Service Revenue Officer breathing down their neck. As many of you know, a threat is much more powerful than the execution of the same threat. If you have kids, you know how that works. Don't threaten them, it won't work when you have to follow through. Same with the boys and girls at the IRS.

With the boys and girls at the IRS, as I affectionately call them, fear has to be used as they often can't or won't execute. Even though the Internal Revenue Service has a lot of power, the power of the IRS is perceived to be much greater than it is in reality. To be perfectly frank, Homeland Security and the Bush Administration worry me much more than the IRS in terms of denial of due process and just plain abuse of citizens and residents.

Take for example the threat of prosecution by the Internal Revenue Service. The hingepin of IRS Power is the abiltiy to take you to the slammer. They are extremely successful in their prosecutions with 84% of convicted tax cheats going to prison. So if the IRS decides you are going to prison, you probably are. Wait though, that's not the whole story. The IRS statistics reflect that only about 4000 investigations are done each year. World wide. In the Universe. Totally. Give me a break. I could find that many people with multiple years of unfiled returns and large unpaid tax bills in my files probably.

So what's the deal here? We have approximately 92,000 permanent IRS employees, and God only knows how many lawyers in Treasury and the US Attorney's office. The Government managed to put 1,777 people in jail, halfway house, or home detention (basically time-out) on IRS Criminal Investigations in FY 2004.

That's about one conviction for every 50 employees or so.

So how close do you think you are to the perp walk, the plastic handcuffs, club Fed?

Randy is an IRS Enrolled Agent, CPA and owner of http://www.irstaxfix.com