It’s Not Just the FBI: The IRS goes into ‘Beast Mode’
#179911
06/19/2023 09:12 AM
06/19/2023 09:12 AM
|
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,915 A 059 Btn 16 FF MSC
ConSigCor
OP
Senior Member
|
OP
Senior Member
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,915
A 059 Btn 16 FF MSC
|
June 18, 2023 It’s Not Just the FBI: The IRS goes into ‘Beast Mode’ By Clarice Feldman
We have seen for some time how off-the-rails the FBI has become, a danger to a free society. More and more evidence now shows it’s not just the FBI. Every federal employee with a badge and gun seems to think he’s a law unto himself. This week the spotlight is on the IRS, and the Congress has to step up and rein the agency in.
While Matt Taibbi was testifying before Congress on the administration’s extensive censoring of social media content, the IRS appeared at his door, ostensibly to question him about his taxes, but obviously to intimidate him for showing up government censorship.
Mr. Taibbi has told Mr. Jordan’s committee that an IRS agent showed up at his personal residence in New Jersey on March 9. That happens to be the same day Mr. Taibbi testified before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about what he learned about Twitter. The taxman left a note instructing Mr. Taibbi to call the IRS four days later. Mr. Taibbi was told in a call with the agent that both his 2018 and 2021 tax returns had been rejected owing to concerns over identity theft.
Mr. Taibbi has provided the committee with documentation showing his 2018 return had been electronically accepted, and he says the IRS never notified him or his accountants of a problem after he filed that 2018 return more than four-and-a-half years ago.
He says the IRS initially rejected his 2021 return, which he later refiled, and it was rejected again -- even though Mr. Taibbi says his accountants refiled it with an IRS-provided pin number. Mr. Taibbi notes that in neither case was the issue “monetary,” and that the IRS owes him a “considerable” sum.
The bigger question is when did the IRS start to dispatch agents for surprise house calls? Typically, when the IRS challenges some part of a tax return, it sends a dunning letter. Or it might seek more information from the taxpayer or tax preparer. If the IRS wants to audit a return, it schedules a meeting at the agent’s office. It doesn’t drop by unannounced.
But that was just the beginning of a series of outrageous actions.
As Congressman Jim Jordan detailed in a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel this week:
We have recently received allegations that an Internal Revenue Service Agent provided a false name to an Ohio taxpayer as part of a deception to gain entry into the taxpayer’s home to confront her about delinquent tax filings. When the taxpayer rightfully objected to the agent’s tactics, the IRS agent insisted that he “can …go into anyone’s house at any time” as an IRS agent.”
The Wall Street Journal provides more details of this civil rights intrusion. The taxpayer was a fiduciary for an estate:
Mr. Haus claimed she had not properly filled out estate forms and owed the IRS “a substantial amount.” Only when the taxpayer presented proof of paying all taxes on the estate did the agent reveal that his visit wasn’t about the estate at all. It was about several supposed delinquent tax returns related to the decedent of the estate.
The letter says the taxpayer called her attorney, who insisted Mr. Haus leave the house, only to be told by Mr. Haus: “I am an IRS agent, I can be at and go into anyone’s house at any time I want to be.” Mr. Haus finally left, but not before threatening to freeze the taxpayer’s assets and put a lien on her house if she didn’t satisfy the balance in a week. Fearing a scam, she called the local police, who ran Mr. Haus’s license plate to verify his identity.
When an officer called Mr. Haus, Mr. Haus identified himself as an IRS agent but said Haus wasn’t his real name. He had used an alias. The officer, also suspecting a scam, warned that if he returned to the taxpayer’s home he’d be arrested. Mr. Haus then filed a complaint against the Marion police officer with the Treasury Department inspector general.
The House letter says the taxpayer on May 4 spoke with Mr. Haus’s supervisor, who clarified that she owed nothing and said -- in the understatement of the year -- that “things never should have gotten this far.” Yet the following day, the taxpayer received a letter -- addressed to the decedent -- stating that the decedent was delinquent on several 1040 filings. This was the first and only mail notification the taxpayer received. The taxpayer was again told by the supervisor that nothing was owed and was notified on May 30 that the case was closed.
If true, this is something else. An agent of the Treasury, wielding the power of tax enforcement, shows up unannounced at a taxpayer’s home. He lies about his identity and his purpose to get inside, then threatens the taxpayer with punishment if she doesn’t pay a tax bill that she doesn’t owe. The IRS agent leaves only after an intervention by her lawyer, and when local police call the agent, he sics the Treasury Department on the officer.
The overreach by armed IRS agents didn’t stop after these two incidents. Twenty armed IRS agents raided a gun store in Great Falls, Montana, earlier this week. The owner reports that these agents confiscated all the 4473 forms, none of which contain any financial information. David Paulides tweeted: “20 armed IRS agents raided his store in Great Falls earlier this week. Tom [the shop owner] informed me that these agents confiscated all the 4473 forms, none of which contain any financial information; instead, the IRS now has access to these forms with sensitive personal details of every customer who purchased a firearm from Highwood Creek Outfitters.”
Does any of this bother you? The debt deal on the Inflation Reduction Act did cut $21 billion out of the IRS’ $80 billion budget, but did not reduce or eliminate the Administration’s plan to hire 87,000 more of these armed, over-the-top Fearless Fosdicks. Forbes dismissed the objections to retaining this expense.
“The Inflation Reduction Act past [sic] last year, gave the IRS billions to go into what the Wall Street Journal at the time called “beast mode.” That law was doling out about $80 billion to the IRS for increased enforcement, operational improvements, customer service, and systems modernization. That stands at more than six times the 2022 annual IRS budget of $12.6 billion. Of the $80 billion, a whopping $45.6 billion was for enforcement. Earlier reports had suggested that the IRS would hire 87,000 new agents. Unfortunately, the ‘87,000 new IRS agents’ line because [sic] a rallying cry for some groups, and some of those lines may resurface again now.”
You can bet those massive new hires will remain a rallying cry.
"The time for war has not yet come, but it will come and that soon, and when it does come, my advice is to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." Gen. T.J. Jackson, March 1861
|
|
|
Re: It’s Not Just the FBI: The IRS goes into ‘Beast Mode’
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179915
06/20/2023 11:17 AM
06/20/2023 11:17 AM
|
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 24,349 Tulsa
airforce
Administrator
|
Administrator
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 24,349
Tulsa
|
Armed IRS agents raid gun shop, seize gun purchase records.Armed IRS agents seized dozens of boxes of ATF form 4473s from Highwood Creek Outfitters in Great Falls, Montana, last Wednesday, prompting concern and criticism from both Montana officials and gun owners.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen told Breitbart News that the IRS seizure of gun owner documents is “extremely concerning” because it appears to “exceed” the search warrant that was issued, which “limited the scope of the search to financial records.”
“These aren’t financial records, they’re records of lawful firearm purchases,” he said. “What the hell does the IRS need with 4473s? We know the ATF in Washington, DC is trying to scoop up as many of these purchase records as possible, and that’s what it looks like they’re trying to do here.”
ATF form 4473’s include each gun purchaser’s name, gender, date of birth, address, location of birth, social security number and the serial number of each gun purchased at the store.
Tom Van Hoose, owner of Highwood Creek Outfitters, said, “At 7:30, I came in and they pulled in behind me with 20 heavily armed agents.”
Hoose explained that the search lasted from before the store opened until 30 minutes before the store’s closing time.
“I can only assume that it’s because of the style of weapons that we have and the press that’s so against them,” he said. “The current administration seems to be hell-bent on getting those guns out of the hands of average Americans.”
Knudsen told Breitbart News that there is a “clear and disturbing pattern” of the Biden administration deploying federal agents to “harass” gun shops, gun manufacturers, and gun owners in the United States.
In response to the raid on the Montana gun shop, Gun Owners of America issued a statement concerning the event.
“This was an incredibly alarming incident to hear about – especially given the checkered past of the IRS targeting conservatives – and Congressman Matt Rosendale of Montana deserves credit for helping to bring the details about this raid to light,” said Erich Pratt, vice president of Gun Owners of America. “This continued weaponization by the Biden Administration of federal agencies to go after their political opponents once again underscores the dire need for Congress to act, including by defunding the ATF and demanding answers from the IRS.” Onward and upward, airforce
|
|
|
Re: It’s Not Just the FBI: The IRS goes into ‘Beast Mode’
[Re: ConSigCor]
#179923
06/22/2023 09:55 AM
06/22/2023 09:55 AM
|
Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 2,147 Slipping the surly bonds of ea...
Flight-ER-Doc
Moderator
|
Moderator
Senior Member
Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 2,147
Slipping the surly bonds of ea...
|
While working on your local area plan, you do identify government employees and their homes, right?
RIGHT?
Emergency Medicine - saving the world from themselves, one at a time. "Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander." I make the ADL soil themselves. And that makes me very happy
|
|
|
|
|