Joe Louis and the IRS

After watching the documentary on Joe Louis, I am truly disgusted with the way the U.S. Government (the IRS in particular) chose to deal with his debt problems. I understand and am fully aware of the fact that taxes are a part of life in this country and if you get yourself into a serious pickle, like the one Louis was in, you must pay it off. That is not the issue here. If the people at the IRS had taken a step back and had taken a good look at what Louis's money was going to, they would have and should have cut him a little slack. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Louis gave over $100,000 to relief funds. He sacrificed four years of his salary to accept the salary of a soldier ($21 a month). He enlisted, mostly for morale purposes, and stood up for his country when it would eventually turn its back on him. Now I am all for taking responsibility for your actions, but the IRS hounded Louis. It was like a game to them. This is just not right. Louis never once said he was trying to avoid paying the government back, he was just trying to find different ways to make money to pay them back while his star power was dwindling away. Despite his treatment from the IRS, Louis remained the strong, humble, soft spoken figure he had always been. His only break came with his third wife (an attorney) who managed to strike a deal with the IRS so he would only have to pay taxes on future earnings. All this said, I really and truly wonder if the IRS would have harassed Louis to this extent if he had been white?