Here are more suggestions from the mailbox for the Internal Revenue Service.

 

Question: Do you think there is a way for the IRS to go after the people who aren't paying their fair share of taxes without using collection tactics that would make the Mafia blush? - - Wondering in West Memphis

 

Answer: Taxpayers around the country have also been wondering, West Memphis . But there is a way to cope with the problem. Divide the collection process into two divisions: One would help taxpayers improperly caught in the maddening maze of bureaucratic bungling. You know these poor lost souls C the man who is down on his luck or the couple who made a mistake on their return and can't get it straightened out.

 

The other division would continue its hard-nose collections, by using quotas C IRS employee performance based on number of seizures and collections. Private businesses use them to spur employees on to do a better job, why not the IRS. It should also use them and other proven collection methods against these chosen few.

 

Question: Is it true that some idiots are criticizing the IRS for going after drug lords and those in organized crime? Confused in Collierville.

 

Answer: Yes, it is true some people say the agency spends too much time crime fighting and not enough time chasing deadbeats. No, these people making this suggestion are not idiots; they are former IRS commissioners and a committee of the American Bar Association. Their suggestion is confusing in Collierville and everywhere else in America .

 

These critics cite government figures: in 1980, 29 percent of IRS investigation time was related to illegal income. Ten years later, this jumped to 47 percent. The two groups say too much emphasis on criminal activities creates the impression it's safe to cheat. They forget that money is money. Collect from crooks or collect from other tax cheats, it's still money owed the government.

 

Here is the IRS in action: One weapon used to capture taxes and hard-core criminals is the Currency Transaction Report. Financial institutions and other businesses report to the IRS cash transactions such as deposits and purchases of more than $10,000. These reports help the agency discover income that might otherwise go unreported and also assist in pursuing drug traffickers.

 

Santiago Perez, from Bogot?, Columbia , and his Panamanian corporation kept five fat checking accounts in a Miami Beach bank. Deposits for more than two years totaled $18.3 million.

The IRS determined Perez bypassed the reporting requirements and charged a 5 percent commission for his service to drug dealers in south Florida .

 

A bank officer where the Colombian had his accounts told government agents that two men regularly bought cashier checks and money orders of less than $10,000. Some money used to buy these checks contained traces of cocaine or marijuana. That means the money had been close to the drugs within 30 days and had not been in public circulation since.

 

After receiving the tip, agents saw the two men frequently go to the apartment of Gustavo Restrepo. They carried a white envelope in and came out with a brown bag. The agents figured the brown bag was not lunch.

 

Several times the agents saw Restrepo deposit bank checks in Perez's bank accounts.

 

When federal agents raided Restrepo's apartment, they found the mother lode: a counterfeit currency detector, $200,000 in cash, $530,000 in cashier checks and money orders C each for less than $10,000, deposit slips to Perez's bank accounts, records linking the activity to Perez and telephone pagers.

 

Even after the search and arrest of Restrepo, the pagers continued to sound for incoming calls. The agents answered the calls and picked up additional money tainted with traces of narcotics.

 

The IRS figured Perez was the mastermind of the operation and nabbed him. It determined Perez owed taxes on commissions of $961,655 plus penalties.

 

Capturing Perez supports the IRS' reputation of jailing crooks where no other agency could. Ask gangster Al Capone.