Enterprise Email 101: Understanding The IRS Email Loss

We should consider the possibility that the emails really are lost, so says this article on Ace.  But the loss was not an innocent mistake.  It could have been planned so as to cover up the tracks of rogue employees:

It is plausible that this was an innocent coincidence. But it is only plausible if the IRS is managing its IT systems so badly that it is very easy to lose critical records -- or for abusive employees to destroy the evidence of their misbehavior.--- Megan McArdle

Putting it another way:  it was premeditated.  They intended to do this a long time ago and accidentally on purpose destroyed the evidence of their misdeeds.  Sounds plausible to me.  Could have been a strategy planned by the Obama administration that could help them win reelection.

Does the IRS run its tax-collection efforts in this slipshod of a fashion?  If they did, they'd be Keystone Cops.  But I don't think they do because they have to be effective in their primary jobs, which is to collect taxes.  If they were this incompetent in their primary function, no taxes would ever be collected.

The IRS is not feared for nothing.  Their priorities aren't in complying with the law, but gathering up tax money.  We should ask why their priorities are such and then act upon THAT.