CV NEWS FEED // On their official government website, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is featuring a job posting with the tagline “We’re hiring special agents now!”
The IRS describes the position, entitled “IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent,” as follows:
Criminal Investigation (CI) is the law enforcement branch of the IRS. Our mission is to serve the American public by investigating potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code, and related financial crimes, in a manner that fosters confidence in the tax system and compliance with the law.
As a Special Agent you will combine your accounting skills with law enforcement skills to investigate financial crimes. Special Agents are duly sworn law enforcement officers who are trained to “follow the money.” No matter what the source, 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. Because of the expertise required to conduct these complex financial investigations, IRS Special Agents are considered the premier financial investigators for the Federal government.
The job comes with a minimum 50-hour workweek “which may include irregular hours,” and requires applicants to “be on-call 24/7, including holidays and weekends,” be able to “effectively respond to life-threatening situations on the job,” and “be willing and able to participate in arrests, execution of search warrants, and other dangerous assignments.”
It is also explicitly stated that “special agents” must be “legally allowed to carry” a gun. In the “major duties” section of the posting, the IRS states that these armed agents “must be prepared” to “use firearms in life-threatening situations” and “willing to use force up to and including the use of deadly force.”
Business Insider reported the IRS is looking to hire a total of at least 360 of these agents across all 50 states. The salary range is purported to be between $53,000 and $95,000.
CatholicVote Director of Government Affairs Tom McClusky weighed in on the sudden hiring push:
The bill that the Democrats passed late last year roughly doubles funding for the IRS’s enforcement division, adding as many as 80,000 agents and auditors. Who is the president waging war on? Not millionaires or billionaires, as he falsely claims. He plans to use the IRS to harass and incriminate political foes.
The bill McClusky referred to is the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022,” which was passed by the House (then under Democratic control) and Senate and signed into law by President Biden in August of last year. The massive $1.2 trillion package is also popularly known by its original name, the “Build Back Better Act.”
Around the time of the law’s passage, there were reports that one of its provisions used taxpayer money to “supercharge” the IRS with 87,000 new agents. This alleged fact was highlighted by many Republicans, particularly in the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections. Meanwhile, it was either contested or denied by most Democrats and left-leaning media sources.
In January of this year, the Republican-controlled House passed H.R. 23, or the “Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act,” the first bill to be introduced in the current Congressional session. The bill would “rescind all new IRS funding while enhancing the services Americans expect to receive from their government.” The bill has yet to be voted on in the Democratic-majority Senate, a situation very unlikely to change prior to the 2024 election.
