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About 89,500 as of 2014. And what a great deal it is....They more than pay for themselves. See wikipedia:For fiscal year 2009, the U.S. Congress appropriated spending of approximately $12.624 billion of "discretionary budget authority" to operate the Department of the Treasury, of which $11.522 billion was allocated to the IRS. The projected estimate of the budget for the IRS for fiscal year 2011 was $12.633 billion.[33] By contrast, during Fiscal Year (FY) 2006, the IRS collected more than $2.2 trillion in tax (net of refunds), about 44 percent of which was attributable to the individual income tax. This is partially due to the nature of the individual income tax category, containing taxes collected from working class, small business, self-employed, and capital gains. The top 5% of income earners pay 38.284% of the federal tax collected.[34][35]As of 2007, the agency estimates that the United States Treasury is owed $354 billion more than the amount the IRS collects.[36]In 2011, 234 million tax returns were filed allowing the IRS to collect $2.4 trillion out of which $384 billion were attributed to mistake or fraud.[37]

To answer this question let us understand the question better. This will require some basic understanding of Economics, Indian Railways (IR) and India.1. EconomicsFor private businesses to work well there are certain preconditions. We generally tend to forget them and think all markets will work like free markets and thus bearing fruits of privatization.These include:Infinite buyers and sellersZero entry and exit barriersPerfect informationProfit maximization(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition)IR business landscape doesn’t satisfy most of these conditions, so we can reasonably conclude that the benefits of privatization, won’t be realized as much as we think.Railways is a natural monopoly.A natural monopoly is a distinct type of monopoly that may arise when there are extremely high fixed costs of distribution, such as exist when large-scale infrastructure is required to ensure supply. e.g. most of the capital intensive infrastructure businesses such as cables and grids for electricity supply, pipelines for gas and water supply etc. These are huge sunk costs, and they deter entry and exit.In the case of natural monopolies, trying to increase competition by encouraging new entrants into the market creates a potential loss of efficiency. The efficiency loss to society would exist if the new entrant had to duplicate all the fixed factors - that is, the infrastructure. It may be more efficient to allow only one firm to supply to the market because allowing competition would mean a wasteful duplication of resources. Natural monopolies are common in markets for ‘essential services’ that require an expensive infrastructure to deliver the good or service, which has its routes in, way countries start addressing the needs of its citizens after they are formed.Because there is the potential to exploit monopoly power, governments tend to nationalize or heavily regulate them, by economic or social regulation.(http://economicsonline.co.uk/Business_economics/Natural_monopolies.html)2. Indian Railways:The Indian railways is known for its turnaround story going from a near bankruptcy in 2001 to strong behemoth in 2007. At the gross level, IR can be divided into passenger transport and freight transport. The major fuel used for railways is diesel while certain portions are electrified. The total length of track used by Indian Railways was about 114,000 km (71,000 mi) while the total route length of the network was 64,215 km (39,901 mi) on 31 March 2011. About 33% of the route-kilometer and 44% of the total track kilometer was electrified on 31 March 2011.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Railways)Vision:The vision statement cited in IR vision 2020 is:Indian Railways shall provide safe, efficient, affordable, customer-focussed and environmentally sustainable integrated transportation solutions. It shall be a modern vehicle of inclusive growth (geographically and socially), connecting regions, communities, ports and centres of industry, commerce, tourism and pilgrimage, and employment generation across the country.Energy Security:Low Carbon Strategies for Inclusive Growthhttp://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/genrep/Inter_Exp.pdfLet us look at the industry structure:Rail passenger transport has been increasing ever since and with increasing demand there is huge need to increase the infrastructure.Rail freight is reducing and road freight is increasing as total percentage of freight transport. (graph above). The main reason for businesses to opt for roadways for freight transport in spite of it being the more costly and energy inefficient option is that the railways service and reliability is really low.Intensity of rail freight in India (diesel and electric) is about 0.18 MJ/ton-km as against 1.6 MJ/ton-km for road freight, i.e. rail freight is about 9 times as efficient as road freight. Out of the total diesel consumed by the country, approximately 10% is consumed by railways and 90% is consumed by roadways. Also diesel is a highly subsidised fuel in the country.So this should clearly establish the importance of this question from the energy security point of view. (If all the road freight transport can be shifted back to rail it will result in significant decrease in imports of crude oil and hence import bill).India loses as much as $45 billion a year due to poor logistics infrastructure, according to a report by McKinsey Quarterly. This wastage could be cut by half and fuel needs reduced by 15-20 percent if the country fixes its transport infrastructure and moves more goods by rail, say Rajat Gupta and Thomas Netzer in the McKinsey report.Approximately 33% of the total electricity route is electrified. Transport by electricity is much more energy efficient than by diesel. Vision 2020 plans to have more than 50% route electrified by 2020.Cross subsidy:The profit made from freight transport, has largely subsidised passenger fares. All of this is very likely to change with the attempt at privatization and the odds are privatisation of Indian Railways will indeed mean higher prices. Railways currently provide connections across the whole country linking even the not-so-profitable areas and represent the true backbone of the Indian economy; people living in less affluent areas are most likely going to be affected by fare hikes when private players come on board with the aim to increase company profits.3. India:Total population is over 1.2billion. Out of this over 30% falls under the BPL category. And the per capita ? is approximately just a little over 5000Rs a month.http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/country/INDThese are the main people (aam aadmi) use the railways as means of transport and the government and business as means of freight transport. The railways have a social responsibility and therefore the prices have not changed within the past 8 years. The reason is mainly political more than populist. As Makarand Sahasrabuddhe says it is in true sense a public good.Indian Railways are not just a means of transport for passengers as the enterprise fulfills social responsibilities as well. Concessions on tickets are provided to senior citizens, students, disabled users and to the economically backward segments of population. Again trains like Garib Rath give superior facilities at subsidized rates. In fact, the fares of Indian railways have not been increased in the last couple of rail budgets. The ordinary second-class fare is as low as 14.9 INR / per km and suburban travel is even lower at around 12.9 INR / per km.Indian budget: the main impediment to the expansion of railways is the heavy investment needed in infrastructure. Railways takes a huge toll on budget via two means:1. Expansion and infrastructure2. DieselIt is the cheapest long distance transport means available to the common man in the real sense. Road and air are very expensive for most people, not urban people.The problem therefore becomes:In a country like India should the Railways be privatized?Constraints:-- Large economic and social in-equality- Energy Security- Poor Railways services- Budget Constraints- Monopoly PricingTrying to balance all these constraints one may realise that there is no clear solution. There can be three ways ahead:PrivatizePublic Private Partnership PPPPublicPrivatization:The most clear effect of privatization will be increased cost which will cause the aam aadmi to be excluded and hence the purpose of inclusive growth will be lost. This would also mean that only profitable routes will be in operation or the not profit will either be shut of or operated at very high prices. All these outcomes are not desirable given the huge population of the country that uses railways as a means of affordable and reliable travel.(http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126698836383250675.html)Privatization will result in increased efficiency but how much of this increased efficiency will result in lowered costs is difficult to say.Privatization is critical keeping in mind the investment needed to sustain growth given the reducing foreign investor confidence, rupee devaluation concerns and inflation.PPP is a relatively good way ahead with some of the services outsourced and have already been mentioned in one of the answers.Keeping railways public is mandatory to keep providing services to the common man of the country. Since it directly affects the lives of so many Indians it's easier to hold the government responsible for its actions than a corporation. Having said this the government must seriously mull overhauling the freight transport from energy security point and growth of view by:- Increasing the electrification of railways- Policies to shift road freight to rail freight- Attract investment to expand the infrastructure

A boycott is a non-violent means of affecting change in behavior by refusing to do business with someone as a form of punishment. Abstaining from driving or taking advantage of welfare is not boycotting unless you boycott paying the corresponding taxes as well. Otherwise it would be like a customer protesting sweatshop labor by donating money to Walmart.Last time I checked, no government on the planet will tolerate it’s citizens boycotting taxes.Interestingly, boycotting taxes would be highly effective at affecting change if done in large numbers. No government can bear the burden of losing revenue and paying for incarceration of a significant portion of it’s population for very long. Either it would collapse financially or it would be forced to concede to the wishes of the boycotters. This could be accomplished with as little as 3% of the population if that 3% had previously been productive citizens.UpdateI’ve had several people ask me in the comments how I arrived at the 3% number. This is partially from Erica Chenoweth’s[1] research on civil resistance and political change (the actual percentage cited is 3.5%) and my own armchair analysis of the effects of a small but significant portion of the US population choosing prison over paying taxes.What follows is a breakdown of the my analysis. For simplicity’s sake, I am focusing my attention only on the federal individual income tax. The real economic disruption from a 3% tax boycott would be more severe if it was not limited to just the individual income tax.326 million - the approximate population of the United States9.8 million - 3% of the populationIRS149 million - total number of individual income tax returns$1.55 trillion - the total federal revenue derived from the individual income tax (an average of $10.40 per return)934 thousand - total audits conducted3395 - investigations conducted, 206 for non-filers (6% of investigations)$611 million - annual operating costs of investigations.The loss of revenue from 9.8 million taxpayers refusing to pay would be $102 billion. At an average cost of $180K per investigation, if 9.8 million taxpayers refused to file tax returns it would cost an additional $1.7 trillion, which is more than it collects in receipts from income taxes. So the IRS would go from collecting $1.55 trillion in revenue to a net loss of $251 billion.Federal Prison System184 thousand - Current federal prison population of the United States. That’s 0.056% of the total population.44 thousand - total number of personnel in the federal prison system.21 thousand - total correctional officers in the federal prison system$7.3 billion - total annual operating costs of the federal prison systemSo the average cost of incarcerating a single inmate is $40K a year and there are, on average, 4 inmates per prison system employee and 8 inmates per correctional officer. An increase of 9.8 million in the federal prison population would cost roughly:$392 billion additional operating costs per year1.2 million additional correctional officers2.5 million additional prison system employees.I hope I’ve made my point. This is only a partial analysis. A full analysis would also have to include the increased costs to the court system, the economic impact to the production and consumption of goods and services, the burden on the welfare programs from the households impacted by the loss of income, etc.[1] Chenoweth, Erica, Maria J. Stephan, and Maria J. Stephan. Why civil resistance works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict. Columbia University Press, 2011.