History

• The office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue was created in 1862, during the Civil War. Congress passed a Revenue Act that year, and today, the commissioner controls the IRS.
  
  

Time Frame

• The name "Internal Revenue Service" was first used in 1918, and was made official in 1953.
  
  

Geography

• The main building of the IRS is located at 1111 Constitution Ave. NW in Washington, D.C. This is near the old post office building, which is one of the most architecturally celebrated sites in the city.
  
  

Size

• The IRS collected over $2 trillion in 2006, but estimates that it is owed an additional $300 billion more for that year alone. To help with this debt, the IRS started outsourcing collection to private agencies in 2006.
  
  

Prevention/Solution

• Due to allegations of past abuse, Congress passed the Taxpayer Bill of Rights III in 1998. Under this act, the burden of proving mistakes falls to the IRS during an audit, when in the past, it was on the shoulders of the taxpayer to prove he had done everything correctly.
  
  

Fun Fact

• The first IRS 1040 forms were only 4 pages long, including all instructions. Today, the instructions for the 1040 form are over 90 pages long, though the form itself is still just a few pages long.
  
  

Benefits

• The IRS collects taxes to pay for federal projects that benefit everyone in the United States. The highest average income tax across all tax brackets--77 percent--was collected during World War I to help pay for the war.