The IRS has lost the trust of the American people. Targeting conservative groups was unacceptable. Pleading the fifth, misleading lawmakers, covering up wrongdoing, throwing away hard drives, and “losing” sensitive emails is even more egregious. Not only did the IRS abuse their power; they spent years lying about it.

So Congress has been forced to investigate, and they could have gotten answers for the American people from one important source: Lois Lerner’s old emails. But now the IRS claims those emails were lost when Lois Lerner’s computer crashed in 2011—something they neglected to mention until two weeks ago. Oh, and that crashed hard drive has been “recycled.” It’s also reported that the IRS ended their contract with the service that backed up their emails. How convenient.

This is frustrating and unfair to Americans. Paul Ryan put it perfectly on Friday during the IRS Commissioner’s testimony before Congress.

“You are the Internal Revenue Service. You can reach into the lives of hard-working taxpayers and with a phone call, an e-mail or a letter you can turn their lives upside down. You ask taxpayers to hang onto seven years of their personal tax information in case they are ever audited and you can’t keep six months worth of employee e-mails? And now that we are seeing this investigation, you don’t have the e-mails, hard drives crashed. You learned about this months ago. You just told us, and we had to ask you on Monday.”

Because Lois Lerner’s emails are lost, we may never get to the bottom of this scandal. Still, it’s undeniable that the IRS abused its power, attempted to silence conservative groups, and has repeatedly tried to hide the truth.

The IRS has no respect for the American taxpayer. Even in the middle of this scandal, it paid bonuses to employees who had not paid their taxes. Yes, America’s tax collection agency not only employs tax delinquents, it pays them bonuses!

This is government out of control.

As Congressman Ryan said, the IRS can turn our lives “upside down.” But Americans have almost no recourse when the IRS abuses its power.

So it’s time to abolish the IRS. This is an agency that had already lived out its usefulness, and we shouldn’t be forced to put up with it any longer.

There are plenty of ways the federal government could go about collecting taxes that wouldn’t require an arrogant, unaccountable federal agency that plays partisan politics and rewards bad behavior. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have put forth ideas over the years. Tax collection should be simple, not scandalous.

Americans work hard to earn a living. The money we send to Washington, DC, in taxes should be spent carefully, responsibly, and respectfully. Our tax dollars should not be wasted on harassing taxpayers. Nor should our tax dollars empower bureaucrats that have no respect for their employers—taxpayers.

We can find a better way. We can find a fairer way. Join me and let’s abolish the IRS.