Confessions of a Tax Collector Read Online Free PDF

interview. I learned later that Gina had already made up her mind about recommending me for the final interview with Jim Neyland. Gina talked, Melissa scowled, and I concentrated on not saying anything completely moronic. Gina asked again, perhaps for the third or fourth time, if I understood this was
collection.
I assured her I understood. She explained how the selection process worked: if I “passed” this interview, the branch chief in Tampa would conduct the third and final interrogation. If I passed that, I would be hired, contingent upon my background check. “We fingerprint you, you know,” she said. I said that was fine with me—I was not aware of any felonies in my past. The “new-hires,” as we would be called, would spend two weeks in something called “pre-Phase,” in Lakeside, before going to Tampa for four weeks of Phase One, or basic training.
    “It’s during Phase One that you truly begin to understand what we do here,” Gina said. “But I hope by this point you do understand that we
collect taxes?”
    She mentioned again that the trainees would be assigned a coach, called an OJI, by the Service.
    “Melissa has already volunteered to take on at least two or three of the newbies,” Gina said. “And you can’t ask for anyone better. Melissa is one of the best revenue officers who ever worked for me.”
    “I came on-board in 1980, before there was such a thing as the Outstanding Scholars Program,” Melissa said. Her tone was derisive. “Started as a clerk and worked my way up to Grade Twelve. Busted my ass.”
    “That’s great,” I said, meaning her achievement, but as she scribbled I realized the notes might reflect that I was referring to her ass. I began to panic, but there was really no way to fix it. Melissa was frowning—and scribbling. I would learn that most revenue officers are determined, if not obsessive, documenters. Conversely, they are also prolific shredders. They had to be to survive.
    “We want to get away from the stereotype,” Jim Neyland said. “You know, geeky little four-eyed pencil-necked pencil-pushers sitting in windowless rooms.” He seemed oblivious to the fact that he had just described me. “Lazy, corrupt, livin’ off the government, bullying taxpayers. That’s the whole idea behind this Outstanding Scholars Program. There was a lot of resistance to the whole idea, at least down here at the local level, but I’m a hundred percent for it. For too long the Service has hired—and promoted, God help us—old cops, old grunts, old clerks with nowhere else to go. It’s time for some fresh ideas, some new blood. A new image! Don’t you think we should change our image?”
    “Sure, I—”
    “Why, what’s wrong with our image?”
    “What’s wrong with it?”
    “Come on, Rick, that’s a cheap ploy. You’re smarter than that!”
    “Well, I guess most people are afraid of—”
    “Huh? Afraid? Shouldn’t they be afraid? What, you think most people Pay taxes out of a sense of patriotism? That’s what you think, Rick?”
    “That’s why I pay mine.”
    “Good answer! But you’re wrong. It’s fear. So the question becomes, is fear so bad? Maybe the reason we need to change our image is people don’t fear us
enough.
There’s a helluva lot of taxpayers, attorneys, CPAs who’ve got our number, who know how to play the system better than we do. You think I’m kidding, but your average shyster knows how to run rings around your average revenue officer. Why do you think we’ve been authorized to hire five thousand more? We’re coming after these bastards dull as butter knives when we should glitter like daggers! Let me make it easy for you. Let me play Barbara Walters for a minute. If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?”
    “Seriously?”
    “Yeah. Seriously.”
    “I guess I would be… I don’t know, some kind of hard wood. Is mahogany hard? I don’t know that much about trees.”
    “Why a hard wood?”
    “Well, you know,