Tax Man

"Confessions of A Tax Collector" is not just a superb memoir about working for twelve years inside IRS offices. It is a superb memoir, period...offering humor, pathos, and insights into the human conditions on almost every page." -- Christian Science Monitor

"Fascinating" -- Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A rich mix of humor, horror, and angst that's better than most novels you'll find on the bestseller lists." -- Boston Sunday Globe

"Alternately amusing and alarming...a revealing yarn about going after tax delinquents. Aside from the pure entertainment value, Yancey discloses the bare-knuckled truth about how revenue agents finally shake those dollars loose from reluctant payers: Find out what they love and just seize it." -- Washington Post

"Downright absorbing...written as well as any novel set in the business world-crisp prose, nicely detailed, and with a well-developed narrative." -- Booklist (starred)

Confessions of a Tax Collector is the story of how being granted virtually unlimited power over other people's lives can radically alter one's own. Twelve years ago, Richard Yancey needed a job. He answered a blind ad in a newspaper offering a starting salary higher than what he'd made over the three previous years combined. It turned out that the job was as a field officer with the Internal Revenue Service, the most hated and feared organization in the federal government. It also turned out that Yancey was brilliant at it.

In this secretive, paranoid culture, built around the premise of war, Yancey became a revenue officer, the man who gets in his car, drive to your house, knocks on the door, and makes you pay. Never mind that his car is littered with candy wrappers, his palms are sweaty, and he can't remember where he stashed his own tax records. He's there on the authority of the United States Government.

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