8A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 25, 1997 Arafat orders arrests of suspected militants . NATION/WORLD """ ' Taxpayers testify to IRS nightmares NABLUS, West Bank (AP) -Yasser Ar4fat ordered the arrests of 20 sus- pected Islamic militants yesterday and tightened security around jailed Hamas activists after Israeli accusations that four men responsible for recent suicide bombings had walked out of a Palestinian jail. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said Israel would continue expanding Jewish set- tlements -- a move sure to anger the Palestinians and irritate the United States, which had asked Israel for a temporary halt in settlement building. Speaking last night in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, Netanyahu said construction would begin soon on 300 new apartments there. "We are building both in Efrat and in Judea and Samaria," he said, using the biblical name for the West Bank, and we are going to build more, both in Efrat and around it ... The land of Israel is being built in front of our eyes, and that's a good thing." Earlier this month, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had asked for a "time-out" in Israeli settlement building in order to help get the peace process back on track. Netanyahu's government rejected that request, saying there could be no movement in the peace process until Palestinians did more to fight ter- rorism. None of the militants detained by the Palestinians in the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday were on Israel's want- ed list. Israel's Channel Two television, quoting unnamed security sources, said there were "specific warnings" of another bomb attack in the near future. The arrests came a day after Israel identified four suicide bombers from two recent attacks in Jerusalem as Hamas activists from the village of Assira, near Nablus. The July 30 and Sept. 4 attacks killed 25 people, includ- ing five bombers. "After revealing the identities of the suicide bombers, many in the world - including the U.S.A., and I allow myself to say even the Palestinian Authority - understand the inescapable need to fight against terrorism," Netanyahu said. The Israeli announcement deeply APPHlOTO A blindfolded Palestinian sits next to an Israeli army jeep as he Is guarded by a soldier outside the West Bank yesterday. embarrassed Arafat. The four had walked out of a loosely guarded Palestinian jail in Nablus last year, and their names were on a list of 88 Islamic militants Israel had given the Palestinian Authority with the demand they be arrested. The Palestinians have countered that Assira and other West Bank villages, though administered by them, are under full Israeli security control. The Palestinians have full control over only seven West Bank cities. Arafat yesterday dismissed Israel accusations that he was partly to blame for the July 30 and Sept. 4 bombings in Jerusalem because he hadn't done enough to crack down on militants. It is not our responsibility," Arafat told reporters. "I can do 100 percent effort, but no one in the world can give 100 percent results." EMN SUNDAY SPECIAL The Washington Post WASHINGTON - A series of har- ried taxpayers, accountants, lawyers and others portrayed the Internal Revenue Service yesterday as an uncar- ing, arrogant agency with workers who will go so far as to fabricate cases to collect taxes that aren't due. A New York priest, a Delaware coi- tractor and a California bank worker were among those who related Kafkaesque experiences in which tax agency personnel and computers pur- sued them for years, ignoring evidence of innocence and even actual payments, seizing their assets and generally wreaking havoc in their lives. "The IRS is judge, jury and execu- tioner - answerable to none," said Katherine Lund Hicks of Apple Valley, Calif. Hicks testified that she was hit with $7,000 in back taxes stemming from a divorce, saw the amount balloon to S16,000 while the IRS sent notices only to her ex-spouse, thought she had set- tled with the agency for $3,500, only to have her payments returned one moment and her property and that of her new husband seized the next. The testimony came at the second of three days of hearings on the IRS by the Senate Finance Committee, which is looking into allegations of abuse and mismanagement by the agency. Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said his depart- ment, the IRS's parent, takes such cases very seriously. "That's why we've been working aggressively over the last several years to correct these long-standing problems. We're work- ing to transform the culture of the IRS" and to modernize its informa- tion technology, he said. The politically charged hearings have raised Democrats' suspicions that Republicans are bashing the IRS as both a campaign fund-raising device and as part of an effort to undermine the current tax code so it can be replaced with a flat tax or some kind of national sales tax. Committee Chair William Roth Jr., (R-Del.), denied partisan intent, saying his panel has uncovered serious prob- lems that need attention. Tom Savage, a 69-year-old contrac- tor from Lewes, Del., told the panel he was working on a prison construction project for the state of Delaware in 1993, when it turned out that a subcon- tractor had not paid his payroll taxes. When the IRS found it could not cole fromi the subcontractor, it turnedW attention to Savage's company. After failing to hold Savage person- ally liable, he said an IRS employee fabricated a partnership between Savage's firm and the subcontractor, had the agency issue an employer iden- tification number for this entity, and assessed Savage for the subcontractor's liability. "He created a company that did not exist," Savage said. Savage appealed, but while he wa" waiting for a hearing, the IRS seized a $145,000 payment from the state to his company. He sued, but the IRS made it clear it would fight, and Savage, unable to pay his bills, settled, paying $50,000. At yesterday's hearing, the commit- tee produced an internal memo from the Justice Department to the IRS dis- trict counsel that said in effect that the agency had no case against Savage. * Monsignor Lawrence Ballweg told of having the IRS threaten to seize his bank account and car when, as it turned out, he did not owe any taxes. As trustee for a charitable trust set up by his mother's will, Ballweg filed the trust's 1995 tax return. Last year, while in Florida, he said he got a notice that he owed S18,000. He' called the IRS in Atlanta, saying his records were in New York and askini for a copy of the return. The agent refused, but told him to fill out a form and send a check for $14 to obtain a copy. Ballweg did so but the agency said his name, Lawrence Ballweg, was not the name on the return. The name on the return was "Lawrence F. Ballweg Trustee U/W Elizabeth D. Ballweg.' He said he wrote a long letter explaining the situation and aga requesting a copy of the file. "Instead! received a 'Final Notice' ... in which I was told that the IRS intended to take steps to take my bank account, auto or other property,"he said. Ballweg heard of the Finan~e Committee investigation and wrote-a letter. The results were dramatic. 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