STEVE MOORE: The IRS went after honest landowners. It's time to

its conservation easement valuations were never the rock-solid numbers it claimed. It was guesswork with a government seal. Now a new office is supposed to untangle the mess affecting 250,000 taxpayers, including people who genuinely thought they were protecting open space and following the law. That's a big concession, but it's not justice yet. It's the start of a long, expensive fight.

Steve Moore is right that the agency went after honest landowners like they were tax cheats. The typical case involves a family farm or ranch that agreed to keep land undeveloped, took a deduction, and then got hit with aggressive audits based on flawed assessments the IRS now admits were garbage. The agency didn't just ask for the tax back. It demanded penalties, interest, and in some cases threatened liens on the very land that was supposed to be preserved. That's not enforcement. That's extortion dressed up as procedure.

The new office is a good first step, but taxpayers shouldn't have to wait years for the government to fix a system it broke. The obvious answer is to ditch the flawed assessments and offer a straightforward path for those who acted in good faith. The burden of proof should be on the IRS, not on the landowner. And if the agency can't show clear misconduct, the case should be closed, full stop. People who protected their land deserve a refund, not a thank-you letter.

This is also a reminder of why the IRS needs serious structural reform. An agency with that much power and that little accountability will always drift toward intimidation. Congress should put a time limit on resolving these cases and force the IRS to pay interest on what it wrongly collected. Treating taxpayers as guilty until proven innocent isn't conservative or American. It's just wrong.