The government uses the IRS code to punish selected people and groups, perform social engineering, and best of all, pass goodies to favored constituents and contributors. On top of that, you get all these great files of information on people. Like the entitlement programs, this is one of the government's greatest tools to keep a death grip of power on its citizens, and I agree that there will be ski jumping in Hell before politicians let go of it in favor of some sort of national sales tax, which has none of these great totalitarian features, and just brings money in to the government.

Oh, I'm sorry. Did some of you out there still think the main function of the IRS was to raise revenue?

Oh, for those of you who don't know what CATS is: Citizens for an Alternative Tax System.