# To any Libertarian.  Would you authorize a new $1 billion agency to save $10 billion?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-any-libertarian-would-you-authorize-a-new-1-billion-agency-to-save-10-billion/614513>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [March 2, 2012, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-any-libertarian-would-you-authorize-a-new-1-billion-agency-to-save-10-billion/614513 "2012-03-02T02:41:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-any-libertarian-would-you-authorize-a-new-1-billion-agency-to-save-10-billion/614513/21 "2012-03-03T01:10:16Z")

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Don’t know how accurate [this](http://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/2007/06/15/the-irs-random-audits-are-back/) is, but according to Turbo Tax they have been doing random audits since 2007:

> [@](#):
>
> The IRS Random Audits Are Back
> 
> The IRS has recently announced that, starting in October, 2007, they will be randomly picking tax returns for full-fledged audits. The plan is to select 13,000 income tax returns, from the 136 million returns filed for 2006. They expect to continue this plan for the next several years.
> 
> The IRS is under strong pressure from Congress to close the $290 billion tax gap (the difference between what is collected and what should be collected.) To do this, the IRS needs “fresh” data to update their computer program that statistically figures out which tax returns to audit in the future to get the most money.

-XT

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**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-any-libertarian-would-you-authorize-a-new-1-billion-agency-to-save-10-billion/614513/22 "2012-03-03T16:52:12Z")

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A Libertarian (and anyone else, I hope) would want to know what the agency was supposed to do. If it is set up to kill all suspected criminals on the spot thus saving court costs, then no, a Libertarian would not support that.

So, **LA** , I don’t ask for cites about hypotheticals, but I do want to know more about an agency than “it exists” before I’m going to think it’s a good idea.

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