What's the specific travesty here? The IRS already looks at and analyzes your private financial data both as reported by you and others and this is generally considered acceptable and a necessary part of them doing their job. So say now they noticed you reported $20k in gross annual income but are buying Ferraris on eBay. It seems pretty reasonable to assume, from that piece of public data that you might be mis-stating your taxable income.

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=HowFairTaxWo...

It's a tax on buying. Think about that for a moment. Fair Tax proponents claim that the current tax system causes disincentives for things like exports and U.S. manufacturing. Why would the Fair Tax proposal then not cause a disincentive on the demand side of the economy? ("How will the plan affect economic growth" in the FAQ clearly espouses a particular economic ideology that has yet to be supported by any of the facts of history.)

It also places the entire tax burden on the consumer. Annual pre-tax corporate profits are somewhere between $800 billion and $2 trillion, depending on which data you decide to believe. Why is all that money being left on the table in favor of drawing the entire national budget from consumers?

Corporations are owned by people (consumers as you call them), tax the person, not the intermediary.

And in any case the corporation would also have to pay the tax on everything they buy.

"With the prebate program in effect, those earning less than $15,000 per year would see their share of the federal tax burden drop from -0.7 percent to -6.3 percent. Of course, if the poorest Americans are paying less under the FairTax plan, then someone else pays more. As it turns out, according to the Treasury Department, “someone else” is everybody earning between $15,000 and $200,000 per year. The chart below compares the share of the federal tax burden for different income groups under the current system and under the FairTax. Those in the highest and the lowest brackets will see their share decrease, while everyone else will see their share of taxes increase."

http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/unspinning_the_fairtax.html

This might help your customers, but it doesn't help you (unless you charge the sales tax and don't forward it). So the cheating incentives are much lower.

And if you're suspected of misrepresentation, they'd still have good reason to go rummaging through your publicly or legally accessible info to make their case. These steps appear independent of the details of the tax code.

You have to wonder, if an agency of the government is not answerable to Congress who represents us, then why do they exist?

But, ah! Is this a "reasonable" search on the part of the IRS? Congress thinks so, but we would have to leave it to the Supreme Court to decide.

Sadly, the train has left, even courts are neutered. They can and are supposed to nip it in the but they will not do it. Journos are harassed at airports for doing investigative works, and no one wants to do anything about it

You know how people complain about the DMV? That's because they don't have to wait in line as long at their bank. It's the same thing with the IRS and Big Data, when a government agency doesn't use the latest technology, they can rightfully be accused of being antiquated. It just so happens that people are much more supportive of shorter DMV lines than they are of paying sales tax on Amazon purchases -- go figure.

Furthermore, if government uses big data to catch polluters, that good. But if government uses big data to catch someone planning a bombing, that's bad?

No one is saying the governments use of Big Data is bad except in the circumstances where our government sees fit to hide its usage or utility even when it directly impacts its citizenry.

It is not the use of modern technology or even the goals, which many on HN will admit are admirable. It is about the path used to reach the end just as much as it is about the end.

I believe that we have very smart law enforcement officials who don't need to routinely violate the privacy of Americans to do their jobs.

There are entire families on the streets and cities like Detroit are crumbling, yet tax payer money is siphoned into more prisons and spy technology.

The logical conclusion is that we need to cut the military in half expenditure wise (saving $340+ billion per year instantly, and cutting our budget deficit in half instantly, while still leaving a massive budget for the military). We need to close 9 out of 10 military bases around the world, perhaps more. End Homeland Security and the TSA. Strictly enforce privacy laws, including the 4th amendment, such that anybody in the government that violates them does hard prison time. Cut the espionage budget ($80+ billion) substantially, including all of the budget allocated to illegal domestic spying. Pass new restrictions on the ability of the executive branch to wage undeclared war (ie without congressional approval), both in the style of what we're doing now in Syria and the more traditional war in Iraq. We should also simplify the tax code, simultaneously wiping out a lot of tax fraud by ending 99% of all loopholes and deductions, and slashing the IRS in half, saving tens of billions per year in tax compliance costs.

We should also, obviously, end the failed war on drugs, and end the mass prison system. The policy of holding in prison millions of political prisoners should be immediately stopped, bringing the extremely violent 'war on drugs' assault on liberty by the government from 1980 until now, to an end. This war of power and greed, costs hundreds of billions of dollars per year in government expenditures, lost lives, lost productivity, prison costs, and the destroyed futures of those held captive as political prisoners (many to be enslaved for labor in corporate prisoners). Not to mention the tens of thousands of lives it ends around the world every year. We currently spend over $100 billion just to keep 2.2 million people in prison.

Your conclusion at the end presents a false choice. Simple black and white example: if you don't like violent gestapo politics, you might as well give up on all organized society (you can actually insert any government action, which proves your position to be filled with holes). The parent never said "no cent should be spent on something I don't like."

I wasn't starting a debate on how we should spend tax revenue, just a comment that this sort of statement is inherently silly.