ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one area in which the UK and the US may fundamentally differ, areas of governmental conduct, and to relate this focus to the overall systems of each country's taxation enforcement mechanisms. It demonstrates that each government behaves only within the constraints that its constitutional strictures allow. The American federal tax system is grounded in the idea of voluntary compliance, a concept the federal courts have endorsed through their constructions of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). What is needed for the politicization of tax law is an example of a social evil which was furthered through and fostered by, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). John Dean, White House counsel to President Nixon, revealed that, during the Nixon years at least, power over the IRS resided in the executive branch, and was seriously abused. The investigation of Reuben G. Lenske's tax affairs was not about taxes at all, but was a form of political persecution.
