Abstract
When their environments change markedly, individuals and species adapt or they cease to be. This principle holds institutionally as well as biologically. History is littered with both discarded enterprises (such as the Children’s Crusade, the Hanseatic League, and the Golden Horde) and successful transformations (such as the evolution of much of the Holy Roman Empire into modern Germany).
The Internal Revenue Service now stands at the precipice of an uncertain future. With considerable justification, the IRS considers itself as being among the most successful revenue collection organizations in the world.1 Whether that characterization will remain accurate in the future will depend on how the IRS deals, and is allowed to deal, with intersecting trends threatening to cripple the ability of the IRS to perform its core mission of revenue collection