Indirect Means

The IRS has announced that it is cutting the staff of auditors who examine gift and estate tax returns by almost half. A deputy commissioner of the IRS " dismissed as preposterous any suggestion that the I.R.S. was soft on rich tax cheats. He said that the money saved by eliminating the estate tax lawyers would be used to hire revenue agents to audit income tax returns, especially those from people making over $1 million. " However, Sharyn Phillips, an agent in Manhattan who stands to lose her job, called the cuts a “back-door way for the Bush administration to achieve what it cannot get from Congress, which is repeal of the estate tax.”

Sounds right to me.