SYNOPSIS: Demonstrates growing public awareness of unethical and illegal practices by IRS personnel. However, the article typifies IRS publicity releases designed to use media to instill fear in the general public. Also promotes public acquiesence to the IRS's illegal activity. The author's tone is somewhat sympathetic to IRS and the underlying effect (intentional or not) may further globalist agenda by justifying totalitarian tactics.
IRS Will Allow employees to use fake names on job - by JOAN LOWY, Scripps Howard News Service
Washington - The IRS, which penalizes taxpayers who give false information to the government, has given its employees permission to use fake names when dealing with the public.
A new rule allows IRS employees who fear they might be threatened to use a pseudonym. The fake name must be registered with the supervisor.
The National Treasury Employees Union, which had been fighting for seven years to get the rule adopted, believes the pseudonyms are necessary to protect employees from irate taxpayers, Susan Holliday, a spokesman for the union, said.
IRS employees are subject to more assaults than any other federal law enforcement agency including the FBI, the U.S.Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Agency, according to FBI statistics quoted by the IRS.
Revenue officers - who impound property to cover overdue taxes - have "one of the most hazardous jobs in the federal government." Holliday said.
"I don't think all employees will take advantage of (the new rule)," she said. "There are many positions that are not public jobs... It's the people who work in the front lines with the public who may be harassed by the public and for whom the protection of a pseudonym would be very worthwhile."
IRS officials strongly opposed the new rule, arguing that enough security precautions already exist to protect employees from unruly taxpayers.
However, the Federal Service Impasses Panel, which mediates labor management disputes, ordered the IRS in March to accept the rule. The IRS is now in the process of implementing procedures for registering pseudonyms.
IRS officials opposed to the rule because they were "concerned about how the American public would feel about whether people in the IRS are accountable if they aren't using their real names," IRS spokesman Henry Holmes said.
Still, Holmes insisted that the new rule does hold employees accountable for their actions because they are only allowed to use pseudonyms registered with their supervisor. The IRS still expects most employees to use their real names.
"This is not a situation where IRS employees on every contact are going to be using an alias," Holmes said.
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