Here’s What The 87,000 New IRS Agents Will Be Packing
Updated: May 8
Back in August of 2022 Reuters "Fact Check" reported this whopper:
Social media users are claiming that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is hiring 87,000 new armed IRS agents. This claim is false. The job listing being shared is for IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agents, and currently only about 2,100 special agents carry firearms, according to IRS’s Criminal Investigation (CI) department.
A week ago, Sam Tabahriti, writing for the Business Insider, in an article titled “The IRS is hiring special agents prepared to use 'deadly force' if needed and is paying up to $95,000” reported:
The Internal Revenue Service is hiring special agents who shouldn't be afraid of using "deadly force."
Criminal Investigation, the law enforcement branch of the IRS, is looking for agents across the US who can combine "accounting skills with law enforcement skills to investigate financial crimes," according to a job posting on its website...
According to a posting on the website for government jobs, the IRS is seeking agents in all 50 states.
So, what are these nonexistent armed IRS agents going to be packing?
According to research by our friends at Open the Books, they will be better armed than many small countries.
The Open the Books research revealed since 2006, 103 rank-and-file agencies outside of the Department of Defense (DOD) spent $3.7 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment (inflation adjusted to CPI). 27 of those agencies are traditional law enforcement under the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
However, 76 agencies are pencil-pushing, regulatory agencies, i.e. Environment Protection Agency (EPA), Social Security Administration (SSA), Veterans Affairs (VA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Health and Human Services (HHS), Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and many others.
There are now more federal agents with arrest and firearm authority (200,000) than U.S. Marines (186,000).
Breaking out the IRS from the rest of the militarized federal workers (All numbers updated through March 31, 2023.) since 2006, the IRS spent $35.2 million on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment (CPI adjusted). The years 2020 and 2021 were peak years at the IRS for purchasing weaponry and gear. Just since the pandemic started, the IRS has purchased $10 million in weaponry and gear. (See chart in the Report here.)
Special agent head counts: nearly 2,100 special agents. Recently, the IRS chief testified that they are adding 600 new positions (20,000 new hires with 3% ratio of special agents this year). Based on headcount, the IRS ranks in the equivalent of the top 50 largest of 12,261 police departments across the country.
Pre 2020 the IRS owned 4,500 guns and stockpiled 5 million rounds of ammunition for use by its 2,159 special agents. These figures include 621 pump action and semi-automatic shotguns, 539 long-barrel rifles and 15 submachine guns. The IRS purchased buckshot and slugs for their shotguns. The rifles are semi-automatic Smith &Wesson M&P AR-15 and H&K rifles — the very same guns that some politicians want banned in the private-sector.
Purchases since 2020 (that would be since Joe Biden became President) equal $10 million.
The Open the Books research revealed the agency made notable purchases of the following items:
$2.5 million on ballistic shields ($1.2 million) and ‘various other gear for criminal investigation agents” ($1.3 million)
$1.3 million on duty tactical lighting ($467,000), tactical gear bags ($354,000), ballistic helmets ($267,000), and body armor vests ($243,000)
Nearly $1 million on Smith & Wesson rifles ($474,000) and Beretta 1301 tactical shotguns ($463,000)
Purchased 3,000 units of optics compatible tactical holsters for weapons with optical sights and weapons lighting systems.
We are happy to stipulate that busting terrorist financing operations and narcotics gang money laundering operations is dangerous and is likely to require the use of deadly defensive force. The problem is that under Joe Biden the IRS, like other federal agencies, has become highly politicized.
In the Biden administration’s highly politicized government the IRS has gone from Lois Lerner-style stalling conservative paperwork to actual political intimidation. For example, earlier this year, Matt Taibbi, a journalist on the Twitter Files, received a visit from an IRS agent at home the same day of his Congressional testimony.
Regular Americans have a right to be concerned when the IRS is armed to the teeth and the lines between general administrative agencies and criminal law enforcement agencies are blurred.
The Capitol Switchboard is (202-224-3121), call today and tell your Senators and Representative that the IRS doesn’t need an army to collect taxes. Tell them you want the massive expansion of the armed IRS force defunded and that you demand that it be returned to its original status as a civilian tax collection agency.
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