Before the computer era, what went on in the government was way beyond reach or question.
We were served the prepared scenarios and we swallowed the majority of them in the belief and trust that our government was what it said it was... until we started to see the cracks forming (Vietnam, Watergate...) and we could no longer keep the faith. We began to doubt, inwardly and to some extent outwardly (demonstrations, challenges, etc.). This continued search for the truth from our elected governing officials and their established institutions has widened with the access to so much more information, making it more difficult to hide actions from words, instant juxtaposition... We now know, and we know it ain't pretty.

How do we take back power? Where do we begin? We call for a complete shutdown of these malfunctioning, if not down right criminal, institutions, i.e, IRS. We start over. Maybe with a straight flat tax for everybody. We cut the crap. Truth is surprisingly simple yet the road it opens is decisively arduous. The outcome- clean, pure, honest liberation.

Sadly, hiding or destroying data is commonplace among government agencies, as a form of CYA. There is acute paranoia about what an IG investigation might uncover, so numerous convoluted misdirections are built in, and information is either overwritten or "lost" long before it's supposed to "age out". This is part of the reason why it's nearly impossible to audit any government agency. What's amazing with the IRS case is the awkward ham-handed way the data has been hidden or "lost" by claiming a mysterious pandemic of crashed hard drives. They apparently aren't as clever as other agencies about the way they keep information hidden.

Congrats on many levels Rich. Going Galt is a wonderful thing.

It wasn't just the feds that decided that they didn't want what they did discoverable - I know one state in which most of their agencies changed from an email system that kept hard backups on servers to one that automatically deleted everything in 6 months. And they're working REALLY hard to delete the old software from all their computers so no one can access the "old files" - never mind some of those records are vital to business...

There's a pervasive attitude to shred what you can in government, so the F***up or illegal mistake someone makes or made doesn't come back to bite someone who whould have caught it (or worse, was complicit in it) in the butt. Why did the IRS files get deleted? Because it is a way of saving the IRS's corporate butt (and the butts of those with their fingers in the cookie jar) from the acts of their employees. If no one can see it, then those in charge (who gave the destruct order) can claim they never saw it, so it never existed...

Its a juvenile, stupid ploy that people are using to hide the cat poop under the rug, rather than cleaning it up in the first place.

Wake up and smell the coffee?? How about we wake up and smell the (black) Berries??

>It is incomprehensible how one agency could have so many key people's hard drive crashes.

Incomprehensible? No. Clear evidence of obstruction of justice? Yes

This is one giant conspiracy by the government who has politicized the IRS. It is obvious that there is dynamite in those e-mails, and probably link the DNC or the WhiteHouse.

Obliterate, yes. Then stop. No transfer of assets from the sovereign people to central looters. Unneccessary and counterproductive to liberty, productivity, and innovation.

Congrats...good luck

Nice....

Today was my departure day at a federal agency where I had worked for nearly five years. I turned in my laptop, the only one that I had used for the entire time I was there. Every bit of work that I did was safely stored on the hard drive.

It is incomprehensible how one agency could have so many key people's hard drive crashes.

The IRS needs to be reined in. I would prefer they obliterate it and start over, but we know that's not going to happen.

BTW, I start a new job on Monday, a rare occurrence in the Obama economy. I'm counting the days until I go Galt in a few years.

Simple answer:
Because the IRS is an evil looters division of the fedgov, an evil looters conspiracy.