[tempaccount9473]

> If the IRS helps you save $5000 [via a tax deduction] that you would have otherwise paid, then the IRS loses $5000

Many Americans have a (one-sided) adversarial relationship with the IRS, thinking it is some kind of evil entity that only exists to financially destroy everyone in America.

But the IRS only exists to implement the tax code enacted by the "representatives of the people" (ha), the US Congress. When the IRS saves someone $5,000 because of a deduction that Congress specifically created as a tax expenditure, the IRS doesn't "lose" $5,000, they are simply performing the function that they are required by law to do.

[talmand]

You have to understand that to many people, any money that the government has been unable to obtain from you is money "lost" to the system or is listed as a "cost." These people would disagree with your statement that the IRS didn't lose that $5000. To them the IRS most certainly did lose that money.

To expand on your thought that people view the IRS as the evil entity. They are just misguided, the true enemy is the overly complicated tax code that is rife with abuse by many people within the IRS, Congress, and the private sector to the detriment of the majority.