Democrats cheered and applauded after passing their $800 billion spending bill on Sunday.
Notably, the bill will add 87,000 new IRS agents, and conservatives are already calling out this initiative because they believe it will target middle America, crush small businesses, push up inflation, and kill the US energy sector.
The head of the Internal Revenue Service has stated that these new agents will “absolutely not” use its $80 billion in new funding to step up audits of low- and middle-income Americans. But many – especially after the Monday FBI raid of former President Trump – are not convinced.
This meme shared on Twitter does a great job of highlighting just how many 87,000 new agents actually is:
Adding more insult to injury, the IRS has just put out a new job opening for special agents. And the job description is quite alarming.
It requires “a minimum of 50 hours per week” and that new hires carry a firearm with the willingness to use “deadly force” if necessary.
At the time of this writing, the original job post is currently unavailable. But that hasn’t stopped screenshots from quickly circulating the internet. See below:
They “will combine accounting skills with law enforcement skills to investigate financial crimes.”
“all income earned, both legal and illegal, has the potential of becoming involved in crimes which fall within the investigative jurisdiction of the IRS Criminal Investigation.” pic.twitter.com/EmyNDok1ei
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) August 10, 2022
To be fair, applying for the job doesn’t exclusively mean participating in operations within the bounds of the United States.
“IRS:CI HAS SPECIAL AGENT attachés strategically stationed in 11 foreign countries,” the report explains. pic.twitter.com/M0Rhm4uubR
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) August 10, 2022
The job listing page that I linked to and screenshot at the beginning of this thread is now “unavailable” on the IRS website. pic.twitter.com/YRKAt5fAVX
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) August 10, 2022
As one user pointed out, it appears as though the “willing to use deadly force” phrasing was added sometime between September 22, 2021, and January 31, 2022.
Per reporting from blue-check Ford Fischer, the editor-in-chief of News2Share, the job listing showed that the IRS “will combine accounting skills with law enforcement skills to investigate financial crimes.”
“All income earned, both legal and illegal, has the potential of becoming involved in crimes which fall within the investigative jurisdiction of the IRS Criminal Investigation,” it added.
Moreover, Fischer highlighted that the IRS spent approximately $700,000 “between March and June 1” purchasing ammunition.
As part of the newly passed bill, $45.6 billion will be allocated for “enforcement-related funds,” which make up more than half of the appropriations.
This is how IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig tried to clarify those funds in a letter that was first reported by CNBC:
The resources in the reconciliation package will get us back to historical norms in areas of challenge for the agency — large corporate and global high-net-worth taxpayers — as well as new areas like pass-through entities and multinational taxpayers with international tax issues, where we need sophisticated, specialized teams in place that are able to unpack complex structures and identify noncompliance.
Rettig then added: “These resources are absolutely not about increasing audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans.”
He wrote that “our investment of these resources is designed about the Department of the Treasury’s directive that audit rates will not rise relative to recent years for households making under $400,000.”
Spin this how you want – Americans are not buying the IRA and White House message.