Did Ed Barnett’s IRS letter get a response?

People are still talking about it. Ed Barnett’s IRS letter made him famous — but there’s something missing from the story: what did the IRS say about it?

It’s usually a bad idea for them to respond to someone who complains about taxes like this. The classic response to tax complaints is “You get what you pay for,” but Barnett’s tax rant dodged that question by listing all the things he did pay for.

It could be hard to ignore the letter, too. The complaints are legitimate, and it’s getting mentioned in blogs, forums, and newspapers nationwide.

Here are a few possible responses:

• More responsiveness: if Barnett could have gotten in touch with someone at the IRS, he might not have had to write the letter at all.
• Lower taxes, more fees: taxes you pay for doing something well (buying a building that went up in price, getting a raise at your job) are less popular than taxes you pay for things that are neutral or harmful (like a mileage tax or a cigarette tax). If we switch to more of those taxes, we might see lower revenue, but we’d have fewer expenses as well.
• More transparency: this one is actually a possibility, and would definitely accomplish a lot. Most taxpayers have a strong sense that their money is wasted — it’s not that they can’t spend it, but that it’s spent on such pointless projects. A little extra work would go a long way towards making this less of a problem.