Letters

IRS

IRS stands for the "Internal Revenue Service," which is the agency of the government of the United States that collects income taxes.

How It's Used

"Like Stone, Cohn combined conservative politics with an outré personal life. 'Roy was not gay,' Stone told me. 'He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate. He always seemed to have these young blond boys around. It just wasn’t discussed. He was interested in power and access. He told me his absolute goal was to die completely broke and owing millions to the I.R.S. He succeeded in that.'"

“As people migrate, these divisions (political, educational, and economic) among American communities are increasing. Again using IRS records, we tracked the average income of people who moved between counties since the 2004 election. Those who trekked across state lines from 2003-07 and settled in counties that grew more Republican this year had average incomes of $18,300. The people who moved into counties that became more Democratic in 2008 averaged $28,100 in yearly income. So those who moved to blue counties had incomes more than 50 percent higher than those migrating to the reddest of counties.”

"Three years earlier, President Franklin Roosevelt had issued an executive order allowing other federal agencies to use SSNs rather than launch their own systems. Within 20 years, the IRS, the Civil Service Commission, and the military were all using the numbers to identify people."

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