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Confessions of a Tax Collector : One Man's Tour of Duty Inside the IRS
by Authors:
Richard Yancey
Hardcover Description:
Imagine if Brad Meltzer or John Grisham's first book had been a memoir about working for the Internal Revenue Service and you have an idea of just how thrilling Richard Yancey's Confessions of a Tax Collector: One Man's Tour of Duty Inside the IRS really is. Serving as a revenue agent--or, more informally, a tax collector--of the IRS for two years, Yancey went through strange transformations--from a tall, pencil-thin theater major, in an unforgiving relationship with no steady income, to a mean, muscle-wielding, unyielding revenue officer at the top of his game. What happens in between this tax collecting, money-hungry metamorphosis makes this memorable memoir the stuff of great fiction.
The Americans who shirk tax laws and responsibilities are inevitably tracked, coded, analyzed, pursued, and in general, marked for tax collection by a legion of government workers take center stage. "We have superior intelligence; we know more about our enemies' lives than they know about themselves. We know where they are. We know what they do. We know what they have. We will execute what they fear," Yancey writes. Just envision the line-up of misfits and average joes who populate the screen on Cops or America's Funniest Home Videos and you'll be close to imagining the range of people Yancey tangles with. Vengeful middle managers, hard-working small business owners, mean-spirited tax protestors, hardened tax evaders--the list of characters goes on and on. Every one of the people tracked within the walls of Yancey's local IRS office has the same, pitiful problem: the tax man cometh and the "beast needs to be fed." Equal parts love story, business tale, high-speed chase, and self-evolution, Yancey's Confessions of a Tax Collector packs plenty of human drama--all of it experienced and survived by one man. --E. Brooke Gilbert
Average Customer Rating:
Entertaining, Fascinating and I couldn't put it down.....
I just finished reading this book and I couldn't stop until I reached the end. (What a romantic end to this story!) I know this will be a great movie someday, but don't wait for the movie, read the book. I was entertained and educated.
I actually have a friend that is a Revenue Officer with IRS. She is the one that recommended the book to me. She says it gives a right on the mark account of what goes on behind the secret walls of the IRS. She has worked there eighteen years so I think she knows. She also said the IRS is afraid many people will read it and find out how they actually treat their own.
Yancey has received a lot of national praise for his writing style and talent. He is a great story teller. I've just started his other book. "Bravo" to Yancey for his talent and bravery in telling this story!
too extraordinary not to be true
I'm not a big fan of this type of book, but I finally relented to my wife's demands that I read it. I fully expected to be bored out of my mind --- a book about taxes! --- but this story totally took me by surprise. It was funny, entertaining and completely absorbing. Some of the reviews I've seen in the media miss the point, it seems to me. This isn't so much an expose of the IRS as a powerful exploration of the human condition, against the backdrop of the secretive IRS. Yancey came of age in this story, discovering strength in himself, including the strength to follow his heart to true love. When I put the book down I told my wife, "This is a love story, disguised as a book about the IRS." Yancey talks in the epilogue about the Service bringing him to the place where he could appreciate the things that truly matter in life. Thank God it did, so he could write this brilliant, wonderful book. Don't buy the reviews you read that insinuate the IRS nearly ruined this man's life. In my opinion, it saved his life.
Best book I've read in 2004
I found this book to be very interesting. I probably got through the book in about a week. It almost ends too soon, I wish it had been a little bit longer.
The writing and editing of this book was extremely good. Each chapter explains a different aspect of the author's experience with the IRS, and it was really interesting to read about his transformations throughout the book. In a way, I can even see it as an inspirational book, providing readers with optimism that they too can be transformed from unloving relationships, conniving co-workers, and difficult circumstances by discovering the POWER inside of you and using it to get what you want in life.
The best book I've read this year.
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Entertaining, Fascinating and I couldn't put it down..... 
