IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel has come up with a stellar idea to counter a perception of political bias after whistleblowers at the agency claimed investigators slow-walked the Hunter Biden investigation, tipping off his attorneys about a search of his storage unit and allowing the clock to run out to prevent charging Biden with felonies.
Werfel announced on Monday that the IRS would cease surprise visits to homes and businesses “except in a few unique circumstances,” saying that the goal was to increase public confidence.
“We are taking a fresh look at how the IRS operates to better serve taxpayers and the nation, and making this change is a common-sense step,” he said in a statement. “Changing this long-standing procedure will increase confidence in our tax administration work and improve overall safety for taxpayers and IRS employees.”
Security concerns and an increase in scammers posing as IRS agents were cited as factors in the decision.
“These visits created extra anxiety for taxpayers already wary of potential scam artists,” Werfel added. “At the same time, the uncertainty around what IRS employees faced when visiting these homes created stress for them as well. This is the right thing to do and the right time to end it.”
More from the IRS website:
As part of a larger transformation effort, the Internal Revenue Service today announced a major policy change that will end most unannounced visits to taxpayers by agency revenue officers to reduce public confusion and enhance overall safety measures for taxpayers and employees.
The change reverses a decades-long practice by IRS revenue officers, the unarmed agency employees whose duties include visiting households and businesses to help taxpayers resolve their account balances by collecting unpaid taxes and unfiled tax returns. Effective immediately, unannounced visits will end except in a few unique circumstances and will be replaced with mailed letters to schedule meetings.
Revenue officers will make contact with taxpayers through an appointment letter, known as a 725-B, and schedule a follow-up meeting that “will help taxpayers feel more prepared when it is time to meet.”
Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, who is tasked with IRS oversight, was less than impressed with the announced change saying it hardly addresses problems with IRS “political targeting and favoritism.”
“There’s little reason to cheer the IRS’s recent announcement that it is supposedly ‘ending’ unannounced visits by revenue officers – the agency has yet to provide a full explanation for why it used such disturbing tactics to show up on people’s doorstep and invade their privacy,” Smith said in a statement.
“Americans remain concerned about the agency’s political targeting and favoritism, regardless of whether they announce their visits or not,” he added. “Tax enforcement that goes after families and small businesses, but tips off Biden’s family sounds like it has bigger problems in how it investigates tax crimes.”
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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