THREATS TO THE IRS: If you haven't been living under a rock (i.e. don't have a subscription to Morning Tax), you've noticed that fiery political rhetoric from Republicans about the IRS has escalated in the past few months. Chief among the invectives is that the agency will use its $80 billion windfall to hire 87,000 new agents who will subject everyday taxpayers to audits that will increase by orders of magnitude. (It's worth noting that the 87,000 figure doesn't account for tens of thousands of agents set to retire in the next few years, and Democrats have said the new money will go towards scrutinizing mostly wealthy tax cheats.) But has the heated rhetoric — which has at times included false conspiracies that there would be armed agents targeting small businesses—contributed to an uptick in threats against the agency? Data obtained by Morning Tax through a Freedom of Information Act request suggest that the jury is out on that question. Of threats directed against IRS employees from outsiders, there were 225 in 2018, 237 in 2019, 323 in 2020, 316 in 2021, and 207 from the beginning of 2022 through Nov. 4, the date that Morning Tax submitted its FOIA. In addition, there were other types of threats categorized separately by the Treasury Inspector General of Tax Administration. In 2022, there have been at least 15 physical assaults against IRS employees; 32 instances of corrupt interference and harassment; 13 bomb threats; 2 instances of a suspected bomb; and 2 instances of a confirmed harmful biological or chemical substance. In 2021, TIGTA confirmed a bomb or incendiary device that was actively deployed against the agency. That's all to say that the IRS is accustomed to dealing with a not-insubstantial level of threats every year. But according to interviews with IRS employees, the rhetoric hasn't helped, especially when it comes to revenue officers whose job it is to go out in the field and collect assets owed to the agency. "It's just general consensus that people don't like us," said Tim Ronholm, a revenue officer and president of a Minnesota chapter of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). "Just suggesting that the IRS employees are a threat and dangerous doesn't make our job any easier. We're an easy target to pick on," he added. Ronholm said he often goes knocking door-to-door without any backup knowing that taxpayers aren't necessarily going to be happy to see him. A colleague once had a gun pulled on him, he said. Out of those same safety concerns, Lorie McCann, the president of a Chicago chapter of the NTEU, said she advises employees to be cautious about wearing badges and vests that identify them as IRS employees or posting about their job on the internet. McCann said she was excited at first about the new funding because it would mean the agency would get "much needed help," but was later discouraged by false claims of armed IRS agents that followed the August passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. "The rhetoric which puts employees potentially in danger is so disheartening," McCann said. Bennet on the CTC: In other news, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) sat down with our Ryan Lizza on Friday to discuss , among other things, the potential inclusion of an enhanced child tax credit in an omnibus spending bill. It's no secret that a progressive group including Bennet has said that there shouldn't be any movement on research and development tax relief for business without a restoring of the beefed-up CTC. But what did catch our attention is that the senator indicated he would be willing to accept some tweaks to the credit to achieve a bipartisan compromise. "I have always believed that in the end this would be bipartisan, that it wouldn't be just the way I designed, that Republicans would make some changes to it," Bennet said. That's in seeming contrast to what Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) told Morning Tax last week, which is that he's pushing for the American Rescue Plan CTC and doesn't want to settle for something less substantial. Interestingly, Bennet said some Republicans have expressed an interest in supporting a bipartisan CTC but that those colleagues had not yet made that interest public. The Colorado lawmaker also mentioned Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) as "an incredible partner" in the effort. Romney in June unveiled a plan called the Family Security Act that would give families $350 a month per young child and $250 a month per school-aged child, and he has spoken with progressives several times on a potential bipartisan deal. But there remain significant differences between the two proposals, with Romney insisting that there should be a minimum income threshold for families to receive the full benefit and that the program should be funded by a repeal of the state and local tax deduction — a no-go for many Democrats.
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