[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.