The IRS tries to squirm out of the law.

• Author: Doherty, Brian
• Position: Follow-Up

In "'It's So Simple, It's Ridiculous'" (May 2004), I explored the exotic world of tax rebels--Americans who believe citizens have no legal obligation to pay income tax. They describe themselves not as mere "tax protestors" but as a "tax honesty" movement, since they believe honesty about the income tax means admitting that none of us legally owe it.

The movement's prospects looked bleak. "A sober assessment of the empirical evidence," I wrote, shows "that victories for the tax honesty movement (the occasional criminal acquittal or mistrial) lead inevitably to a later defeat (further convictions or civil seizures)."

While tax protestors fare no better nowadays, it's the tax collectors who are today making headlines by quibbling about how to interpret various tax laws. Congress has been investigating reports that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may have aimed unusually abusive information requests, denials of status, and bureaucratic foot-dragging at nonprofit groups with a conservative bent.

In May, former IRS official Lois Lerner, who had been in charge of the efforts directed at such groups, pled the Fifth Amendment before Congress. She now insists that all possibly incriminating emails regarding abuse of power aimed at the administration's ideological enemies were lost when her hard...