By: A.J. Cook


While most people understand that IRS collection employees are only doing their jobs, others take it personally when their assets are seized and lives ruined.

Grady's Inc., in Bayville, N.J., owed additional taxes. Several IRS employees went there to seize assets.

They were challenged by an angry corporate officer, James E. Johnson, when they asked for the key to Grady's premises. He refused, saying he held a lien on those assets.

The tax collectors left and returned with a locksmith. Johnson called the police demanding they arrest the IRS employees. The police refused to act without a formal complaint from him.

Johnson then stood in the doorway blocking the IRS employees and swearing. He said they would enter only over his dead body. The collectors demanded he stand aside. He refused. They grabbed him. A fracas ensued. Johnson, scratching and biting, was overpowered and handcuffed by the agents.

A court committed Johnson for three months for study and observation. It also fined him $5,000 and placed him on three years' probation.

The Moral: It's crazy to stand in the way of the almighty power of the IRS.

The IRS compiles a list of people considered potentially dangerous to its employees. Recently it expanded the criteria for inclusion. It added stalkers and people threatening families of IRS employees. The program, created in 1984, identifies 5,743 people espousing violence against IRS employees.

Elijah W. Ratcliff is probably on the list. Agency employee Joseph Hamilton planned to collect $50,000 by seizing Ratcliff's bank account and placing liens on his property. After the IRS officer explained the process to Ratcliff on the telephone, the taxpayer said: "If I find out you acted outside the scope of your authority, I'm gonna waste you . . . ."

Two days later Ratcliff was arrested. A search of his Livingston, Tex., home found two guns and two boxes of ammunition.

He was convicted of interfering with the administration of tax laws.

The Moral: Waste not, jail not.

IRS collection officers Deborah Barrett and Roberta Collett arrived at Edmund Burk's home to pick up his taxes or his truck.

Burk was in no mood to cooperate. Neither was his son Douglas. After forcing the two women to review some records and threatening them, Edmund and Douglas allowed them to leave.

As the collection officers left, they realized the truck they planned to seize, which had been in the driveway, was gone. They also noticed one of their car's taillights was broken.

The next day police arrested the Burks on charges of assaulting, intimidating and impeding IRS officers. The father pleaded guilty and the son was tried and convicted.

One agent had testified that Edmund had yelled, "If you weren't a woman, I'd punch your lights out." He then shoved her with his stomach.

The Moral: Mothers, don't let your children grow up to be IRS collection officers.