Brandon said he didn't think tea party activists would be troubled by Bachmann's work for the IRS. The tax code itself is the problem, he said. But some of her rivals might be tempted to make her former job an issue.

"If you're Tim Pawlenty or Newt Gingrich, you're going to grab this and say, "Look at this, she's a tax collector,' ''Brandon said.

The founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, Bachmann is a central figure in a national insurgency that decries big government and demands lower taxes. Her campaign and congressional biographies make no mention of her handling of tax collection cases from 1988 to 1993 for the IRS.

"Rather than taking money from the hands of the middle class to pay for a large, overbearing federal government, I believe in letting hard-working taxpayers keep more of what they earn,'' she says on her congressional website. "In my work as a former federal tax attorney, I saw firsthand that our nation's tax laws are hard to understand and undermine the country's prosperity by imposing needlessly harsh penalties on work, savings, and investments.''

Tell that to Marvin Manypenny, a Native American activist in Minnesota who failed to pay taxes on three years of wages totaling $30,650. Bachmann took him to federal court in 1992.

Manypenny worked at the Youth Project, described in court records as "a public foundation with a 17-year history of building citizen participation organizations around the country committed to social justice and peace.'' The resident of the White Earth Indian Reservation contended he was exempt from income taxes because of the April 8, 1867 land treaty between his Chippewa Indian ancestors and the U.S. government. He met Bachmann briefly in the federal court building in St. Paul.

"She was very -- how do I put this? -- haughty and curt,'' the 64-year-old Manypenny told National Journal in a telephone interview. "I tried to state my contentions to her and it was like talking to a brick wall.''

The court didn't accept Manypenny's argument, either. While the treaty exempted Indian-owned land from taxes, it did not exempt individuals. "We give no credence to petitioner's contention that he and the land are one,'' the court ruled.

Years later, Manypenny doesn't recall how much money he ended up paying in back taxes. But he questions how someone who hounded a minor-league tax delinquent like himself could support the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans enacted by former President George W. Bush.

"I think people better take a look at that tea party orientation she has,'' he said. "She's putting the burden on people like myself who are low-income and middle-class.'' Manypenny's case is highlighted on an anonymous, anti-Bachmann web site at www.dumpbachmann.com, which mocks her as a "repo-gal.'' Bachmann spokeswoman Alice Stewart said she has never tried to conceal that she worked for the IRS.