American households live in fear of the capricious malice of the Internal Revenue Service, which may more or less at will strip them of possessions and peace of mind with no appeal. It is the closest thing to the hard hand of tyranny the individual American will ever experience — certainly its ordinary exercise of power, seizing one-quarter to one-half of a family’s livelihood every year, exceeds anything George III ever dreamt of inflicting — By Ben Domenech