--- title: David Foster Wallace on the IRS Scandal: The Absurdity of Bureaucracy description: Were David Foster Wallace alive today, it’s a good bet that he would have had both great interest and insight into this week’s scandal at... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7132049/were-the-government-its-worst-face-david-foster-wallace-on-the-irs/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-05-19T09:45:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-16T09:16:55.985Z article:section: Ideas og:title: David Foster Wallace on the IRS Scandal: The Absurdity of Bureaucracy og:description: Were David Foster Wallace alive today, it’s a good bet that he would have had both great interest and insight into this week’s scandal at... og:url: https://time.com/archive/7132049/were-the-government-its-worst-face-david-foster-wallace-on-the-irs/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta1415f3afa4fc6c1/698a915f929fad2dcac02765/out9321821.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: David Foster Wallace og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: David Foster Wallace on the IRS Scandal: The Absurdity of Bureaucracy twitter:description: Were David Foster Wallace alive today, it’s a good bet that he would have had both great interest and insight into this week’s scandal at... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta1415f3afa4fc6c1/698a915f929fad2dcac02765/out9321821.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Ideas](/section/ideas/) # 'We’re the Government, Its Worst Face,' David Foster Wallace on the IRS > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=c437c017-b2ce-4bbe-9189-c1978501f302&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) May 19, 2013 9:45 AM UTC  ca. 1996 --- Photographed in his hometown of Bloomington, Ill. --- Image by © Gary Hannabarger/Corbis ca. 1996 --- Photographed in his hometown of Bloomington, Ill. --- Image by © Gary Hannabarger/Corbis © Gary Hannabarger/Corbis—© Corbis. All Rights Reserved. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) May 19, 2013 9:45 AM UTC Were David Foster Wallace alive today, it’s a good bet that he would have had both great interest and insight into [this week’s scandal](http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/10/irs-admits-targeting-conservative-groups-over-tax-status/) at the [IRS](http://topics.time.com/irs/). Before Wallace’s 2008 suicide, the author spent nearly a decade working on his ultimately unfinished novel _The Pale King,_ a mammoth, disjointed work describing the lives of several IRS examiners at the Peoria, Ill., regional examination center during the 1980s. Wallace researched the novel exhaustively, going as far as to take advanced accounting courses to inform his writing. But it’s obvious Wallace spent a lot of time [researching the history of the IRS](http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5236&context=faculty%5Fscholarship), as well, as he included fictionalized versions of several scandals — like a 1985 incident in [Philadelphia](http://topics.time.com/philadelphia/), in which examiners were caught destroying unprocessed tax returns — into his narrative. (**MORE:** [The IRS Was Wrong — but Many Political Groups Should Not Be Tax-Exempt](http://business.time.com/2013/05/14/the-irs-was-wrong-but-many-political-groups-should-not-be-tax-exempt/)) The reasons Wallace chose the IRS as his subject are manifold. One of the main themes of the book is boredom, and what better way to address the topic of boredom than by writing about a bunch of accountants? But _The Pale King_ is also a novel about civics, and the responsibility ordinary citizens have to one another and their government. Wallace believed modern culture had conditioned us to act selfishly and relinquish the responsibility we have toward our fellow man to the government. In one passage, an IRS worker expounds on this idea: --- > “” --- This paradox — that government is simultaneously something of our collective creation and a force in and of itself capable of oppression — should be familiar to us all. In a way, it’s this contradiction that drives our perceptions of this most recent scandal, in which the IRS was caught discriminating against conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status. Conservatives are more likely to see only the side of government that seems a rapacious creditor, and therefore want to [radically limit its scope](http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/15/abolish-the-irs/). Liberals, on the other hand, [lay blame](http://www.cjr.org/united%5Fstates%5Fproject/the%5Fother%5Firs%5Fscandal.php?page=all) at the feet of those who seek to underfund government — which has the potential to be a representation of our collective will. If the IRS simply had the manpower to properly do its job, they say, the shortcuts that led to this scandal never would have happened. (**MORE:** [The IRS Mess — and the GOP’s Campaign to Paralyze Washington](http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/13/not-nixon-exactly/)) Wallace goes on to emphasize how this conflict between individualism and the collective lies at the heart of the democratic experiment itself. The IRS worker continues: --- > “” --- Solipsism — throughout all of Wallace’s fiction — is the great danger of modern life. Our economy thrives on marketing that puffs us up and regales us with stories of our importance — indeed our centrality to everything. Buy this, and you’ll set yourself apart, you’ll achieve the singularity that has always been owed you. At the same time, an advanced technological society like our own requires organization and cooperation on a vast scale. To retain our illusion of individualism we create bureaucracies that work behind the scenes to organize the labor required to maintain modern civilization. We’re rugged individualists, trying to escape oppressive corporate forces and the government. Then we go to work each day to make sure these institutions continue to thrive. (**MORE:** [The Real IRS Scandal](http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/the-real-irs-scandal/)) One of the most powerful sections in _The Pale King_ describes the coming-of-age of IRS examiner Chris Fogle. As a youth, Fogle is a prodigal son, who spends his father’s money on drugs and a series of unsuccessful university stints. But his life is changed when he encounters a mysterious accounting professor who delivers a speech describing how accountants are actually the true heroes of our time: --- > “” --- In _The Pale King,_ Wallace exalted the accountants that make the IRS tick while simultaneously showing the inherent absurdity of bureaucracy. Unlike the postmodern authors of the ’60s and ’70s, for whom bureaucracy was perhaps the greatest evil, Wallace offers redemption for those who seek meaning in the tedious drudgery of modern life. And we see, through television shows like the just-concluded _The Office_,that there is a place now in our culture for this project. Since the vast majority of us are somehow involved in bureaucratic ventures, we must either find some significance within these institutions (while still laughing at their farcical aspects), or write off huge swaths of our lives as meaningless. Wallace has always dwelled on these contradictions and double binds that make life so complex. As recent events have proven, making a bureaucracy function fairly and efficiently is a daunting task. But that, Wallace would argue, is what civic responsibility is about. No amount of tax cuts and government downsizing is going to change the fact that government — in some shape or form — is necessary. How you do the tedious job of making it work is the hard part. **MORE:** [The Taxman Cometh: New IRS Scandal Echoes a Long History of Political Harassment](http://swampland.time.com/2013/05/14/anger-over-irs-audits-of-conservatives-anchored-in-long-history-of-abuse/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7132049/were-the-government-its-worst-face-david-foster-wallace-on-the-irs/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7132049/were-the-government-its-worst-face-david-foster-wallace-on-the-irs/"},"headline":"'We’re the Government, Its Worst Face,' David Foster Wallace on the IRS","datePublished":"2013-05-19T09:45:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T09:16:55.985Z","description":"Were David Foster Wallace alive today, it’s a good bet that he would have had both great interest and insight into this week’s scandal at...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7132049/were-the-government-its-worst-face-david-foster-wallace-on-the-irs/","keywords":["Taxes","IRS"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta1415f3afa4fc6c1/698a915f929fad2dcac02765/out9321821.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta1415f3afa4fc6c1/698a915f929fad2dcac02765/out9321821.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"David Foster Wallace","caption":"David Foster Wallace","creditText":"© Gary Hannabarger/Corbis—© Corbis. 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