June 18, 2023

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.

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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. 

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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: