Anything David Cay Johnston writes for the New York Times is worth reading, and his article today on the Congressional testimony of Nina E. Olson, the national taxpayer advocate, is no exception. In the space of a single two-column article, he gives us more hard information than we can get in a week’s worth of primary-season punditry. In today’s article we learn that:

1/ Olson has proposed “apology payments” ranging from $100 to $1000 that would be used to compensate taxpayers who endure “excessive expense or undue burden” on their time as a result of I.R.S. mistakes.

2/ The government could collect $100 billion or more in taxes on the cash economy by tracking credit card payments, state sales tax reports, and other records.

3/ The use of private tax collectors may cost more money than it brings in: “The I.R.S. had expected private companies to collect $88 million but has now lowered that to as little as $23 million…. When the costs of government oversight are added in, Ms. Olson said, the program may even lose money.”

4/ The Bush administration favors the use of private tax collectors “even though it acknowledged in testimony to Congress that it was far less efficient than having the I.R.S. handle all collections.” The I.R.S. estimates that it can bring in $20 of tax revenue for every dollar it spends to collect that revenue. (The Bush administration estimates that private tax collectors bring in $5 for every dollar they receive, but remember #3, above.)

5/ Eighty percent of penalties imposed on tax preparers are not being collected.