By Clarice Feldman
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.
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.
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:
Mr. Haus claimed she had not properly filled out estate forms and owed the IRS “a substantial amount.” Only when the taxpayer presented proof of paying all taxes on the estate did the agent reveal that his visit wasn’t about the estate at all. It was about several supposed delinquent tax returns related to the decedent of the estate.
The letter says the taxpayer called her attorney, who insisted Mr. Haus leave the house, only to be told by Mr. Haus: “I am an IRS agent, I can be at and go into anyone’s house at any time I want to be.” Mr. Haus finally left, but not before threatening to freeze the taxpayer’s assets and put a lien on her house if she didn’t satisfy the balance in a week. Fearing a scam, she called the local police, who ran Mr. Haus’s license plate to verify his identity.
When an officer called Mr. Haus, Mr. Haus identified himself as an IRS agent but said Haus wasn’t his real name. He had used an alias. The officer, also suspecting a scam, warned that if he returned to the taxpayer’s home he’d be arrested. Mr. Haus then filed a complaint against the Marion police officer with the Treasury Department inspector general.
The House letter says the taxpayer on May 4 spoke with Mr. Haus’s supervisor, who clarified that she owed nothing and said — in the understatement of the year — that “things never should have gotten this far.” Yet the following day, the taxpayer received a letter — addressed to the decedent — stating that the decedent was delinquent on several 1040 filings. This was the first and only mail notification the taxpayer received. The taxpayer was again told by the supervisor that nothing was owed and was notified on May 30 that the case was closed.
If true, this is something else. An agent of the Treasury, wielding the power of tax enforcement, shows up unannounced at a taxpayer’s home. He lies about his identity and his purpose to get inside, then threatens the taxpayer with punishment if she doesn’t pay a tax bill that she doesn’t owe. The IRS agent leaves only after an intervention by her lawyer, and when local police call the agent, he sics the Treasury Department on the officer.
The overreach by armed IRS agents didn’t stop after these two incidents. Twenty armed IRS agents raided a gun store in Great Falls, Montana, earlier this week. The owner reports that these agents confiscated all the 4473 forms, none of which contain any financial information.
And the Republicans helped finance another 85,000 of them.
I got a nasty-gram from the IRS saying I owed my 2021 taxes plus penalty and interest. The taxes had been paid; I have our bank statement and the acct # where the IRS converted it to electronic payment. So, of course, I had to call; there was nothing on their website to rectify the issue.
I waited on hold for an hour and 45 minutes. Finally, a person answers and sees I’ve already paid. I’m not sure what the damn problem was, but it has something to do with my SS number being the primary number (for my wife and I filing jointly) but my wife had done the return with her SS number on it. That would make sense except she’s done the returns for the past I don’t know how many years.
Of course, it takes two weeks for the payment to be applied and for me to get notified all is well. I know this is hardly a rogue IRS agent harassing an innocent person, but the wait to see if the issue is actually corrected and ended is. I have little trust that the IRS will correct this without further effort on my part, given how they screwed this up in the first place.
The IRS is bad enough as a massive, poorly run bureaucracy at best. Add political weaponization to the mix and it is a threat to life and liberty. One more reason for the Democrat’s totalitarian police state to be eliminated, along with the fascists.
I don’t make $400,000 a year. Does the taxpayer in the article? How about Paulides? I kind of bet they don’t.
New we know what it was like living under Biden just like it was for those living under Hitler, Stalin, Castro and Mao and Liberals with sawdust for Brains admire the last Three
Impersonating IRS agents is one of the hottest scams going. Taxpayers should be familiar with the latest scams, how to identify legitimate contacts, and where to check online to confirm actual tax debt situations:
Latest IRS Scams: How to Spot Them and Fight Back
That is well and fine under what authority did twenty armed IRS agents raid a gun store in Great Falls, Montana, earlier this week? The owner reports that these agents confiscated all the 4473 forms, none of which contain any financial information. David Paulides tweeted: “20 armed IRS agents raided his store in Great Falls earlier this week. Tom [the shop owner] informed me that these agents confiscated all the 4473 forms, none of which contain any financial information; instead, the IRS now has access to these forms with sensitive personal details of every customer who purchased a firearm from Highwood Creek Outfitters.”
The only IRS employees who are armed belong to the Criminal Investigation division. They were accompanied by local police officers. The raid probably wasn’t about somebody’s unpaid taxes.
If not about taxes, which it was not why is the IRS involved at all? Why take all those 4473 forms? By what authority did they seize that mans records by gunpoint?
Who said somebody pointed guns at anybody?
It might involve excise taxes on imported firearms. It might involve gunrunning, or militia extremists stockpiling weapons. Who knows?
No answer my question the IRS took non financial records there were 20 armed agents what gives them that authority?
The Department of Treasury has authority over federal excise taxes on imported firearms. CI agents are under Treasury authority. The 4473 forms would document all firearms sold, which could then be compared with excise taxes paid. Anything beyond that would be speculation. Here’s a link to a video with the store owner. It sounds like ATF was also involved.
Great Falls gun shop re-opens after a visit from federal agents
It’s a bad look for a government that most Americans don’t even see at authoritative.
They might want to think a little harder about how this looks.
Unless you want to be ruled by armed gangs, knuckle-dragging thugs, and warlords like the post-apocalyptic world of The Postman, you need a central government that stands between the people and the above mentioned. We’ve got that. It’s far from perfect, but it’s sure as hell better than any number of totalitarian states. Listening to the right, the problem would seem to be that we have TOO MUCH individual freedom in America. The right wants the state to be able to intrude into people’s personal lives and business to a far greater degree than it does at present, and is busily making that happen.
We know you are terrified of too much freedom with that comes personal responsibility.
If they did not seize this guys records we would all live ruled by Warlords, ya sure piss pants that was gonna happen.
We do not. We have an unelected dictatorship.
And you worship the state, not God.
That’s the issue in America. Too many like you have lost their way.
You don’t seem to have an issue with tens of thousands of armed IRS agents being commissioned, and the IRS going to a gun shop to start the process of disarming Americans.
YOU apparently do. That’s why you’re against people like Penny and Rittenhouse, both citizens who legally protected our society.
Where the hell do you think Laws come from, anyway?
Not the government, greg.
Yet that is exactly what this corrupt regime is bringing about. No law enforcement, rogue federal agents and gangs of leftist political terrorists. This regime encourages crime and punishes the law abiding and those who protect themselves like the McDougals, Penny, Rittenhouse and Williams
I disagree. Under the enumerated powers, local law enforcement is the purview of The States. We haven’t had a Central Government for decades. We have had an occupation regime of pencil necked Maoist burocrats all too eager to test the limits of their authority and equipment. I can name several Federal excesses of aggressiveness that ended badly. Ruby Ridge easily comes to mind… More recently, “The Bundy Standoff” the groomed plot to kidnap that Whitmer wench that had more agents and in y torments thsn actual “conspirators”… The 7 year ” rolling coup” against President Trump… The j6 entrapment operation… There are many examples. At this stage, who would want to go “Vichy” and collaborate with these oppressors? Can’t wait for the pendulum to swing back.
When was the last time an armed IRS agent came to take tax papers from anyone? Never pal, they get tax information from other sources and if it doesnt match what you say they send letters and fine the shit out of you.
With out his documents how can he possibly defend himself?
Defend himself from what?
Audit moron and fines interest on those fines, the forms were not on the warrant but they took them anyway
The ATF were only involved over the phone.
What do you want to bet those letters to the IRS result in a great big “F. U.”, as in the totalitarian regime, no one has to follow the law.
“We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. F.B.I. is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex life scandles [sic] and plain blackmail when they should be catching criminals. They also have a habit of sneering at local law enforcement officers.”
Who said that, Comrade Dumass?
The 4473 doesn’t contain any financial information. It is gun and gun owner information. So how does the IRS calculate excise tax from the 4473 form? Bullshit. This is the IRS building a gun owner database.
All government power comes at the barrel of gun, silly goose.
That why you and people like you want to take ours.
They were described as heavily armed, by a gun store owner, that could only mean rifles, not just side arms.
There is no circumstance in which 4473s would be necessary in an investigation spearheaded by the IRS.
We see these things coming a mile away now.
Media: “It’s going to look like Trump won, but millions of votes will come in the night for Biden and Biden will win.”
Translation: They are going to rig the election.
Now: We need 87,000 IRS troops with millions of rounds.
Translation: We’re going to arrest those who see as a threat to our regime, like all communist regimes do.
It’s what it looks like. These people are who they appear to be.
Montana isnt CA there is a senator now involved over the incident. Dude want answers.
You need more IRS agents because scofflaws are cheating on their taxes to the extent of over $400 Billion per year.
87,000 new IRS agents is total bullshit, by the way.
The lie, and the facts: Why Republicans Keep Spreading the ‘87,000 IRS Agents’ Lie
It’s not a lie.
Besides, Biden has told us he’s going to take away guns.
He’s also threatened his own citizens with nuclear war and F-15s.
You think a TIME article (a state-run media) is going to fool anyone?
You people are working towards a Communist America.
2024 is our last chance to stop you with legal elections. After that, you’ll be rounding us up and putting us into rail cars.
That’s why raiding gun stores is suddenly important to you.
You people are working towards a Communist America.
We are essentially there.
After that, you’ll be rounding us up and putting us into rail cars.
That is what warped people like him fantasize about. Perhaps it is a way of getting back for being closeted for a number of years. Naturally they’ll want other people to do their dirty work for them because they don’t have the stones to do it themselves.
“You need more IRS agents because scofflaws are cheating on their taxes to the extent of over $400 Billion per year.”
But according to your link:
The IRS recently estimated the average VCR was 83.6 percent from 2011 through 2013, while the average NCR was 85.8 percent – meaning enforcement has only increased compliance by two percentage points and 14 percent of taxes owed remain uncollected. These compliance rates are roughly in line with previous IRS tax gap analyses covering tax years 2001, 2006, and 2008 through 2010 – though the VCR dipped to 82.3 percent in 2006.
Like idiot Biden, who cheats on his taxes and takes illicit money from foreign nations laundered through shell companies.
Did I not just explain how they DO have legal authority, and why 4473s could be part of an excise tax investigation? The location they were visiting wasn’t exactly free of firearms and ammunition, was it? The owner himself—though none too happy—described courteous and respectful interaction.
The excise tax paid at time of purchase all the records would be sent to the IRS and inventory could be taken on any unsold weapons, they took the mans documents, does the 4th amendment mean nothing? How now can he prove all taxes were paid do you think the amount was less or more than 20 agents pay for the day? And the police back ups pay.
Even with authority, why the departure from prior methods? Is the hon store a front for radical middle-eastern terror organizations? No. This was a willful and unnecessary use of force. Perhaps a test, or an incremental step down that slippery slope… I find it amusing that all the excesses imbecilic lefties warned us against with Trump never materialized then, but they sure are clicking now that your lying crook is in power… A liar so blatant that, in 1987, he had to bow out of the primaries over the avalanche of whoppers he had told… It took almost a half century for leftist voters to become just as corrupt as him. Under Trump, no new wars. Economic improvement until Chi-Com bio weapon COVID was unleashed by Democrat ally China… It would not surprise me at all that COVID was a global influence operation by the CCP to reshape western leadership and compel them to partner up with the CCP. Look at the BRICS economic group??? The left always ends up using compulsion to gain, and remain in, power. That is what we are seeing. This administration’s tottering first steps towards becoming America’s Khmer Rouge.
The gun store owner’s own account, on video.
What’s the matter? You don’t like the owner’s own account of what happened?
I dont like how sweet they were while seizing his papers while heavily armed thats correct.
You really think he’s going to complain and earn their further attention? Having traveled abroad, I’ve seen how these things work.
That doesn’t exactly help your position, scooter.
Mao believed that. Apparently you do, too.
How many f*cking guns do we need before it finally registers that nobody has stopped the industry from flooding America with so many that people can’t even keep track of where the latest mass shooting was?
What’s wrong with a country where firearms have become the leading cause of childhood death?
Where is that in the USA it drowning and auto accidents, but the biggest killer abortion by far in 2020 930,160 abortions
Guns require a level responsibility so does sex.
Dead kids are the result of a $9 billion per year industry with blood on its hands; 40,000 total annual firearm deaths, twice as many wounded, and enormous related medical costs.
The Democrats are the best gun sellers ever, keep turning criminals loose and defund cops. We feel the need to protect ourselves. You best look at big Pharma and medical mistakes, teachers that give these kids zero hope only teach victimhood and self hate not reading.
Guns are not evil, democrats are.
Cali NY Portland are being depopulated because of looney tune democrat policies.
Do you know what funds wildlife conservation?
There are 15.2 million hunting license holders in the United States.
Wisconsin by the numbers
– Percent of residents with paid hunting licenses: 11.7%
– Total paid hunting license holders: 680,733
– Total hunting license, tags, permits and stamps: 4,142,884
– Gross cost of all hunting licenses: $40,940,312
Wisconsin is ranked 8th in the nation.
Wow nearly 700000 out there with loaded guns and look at the carnage
https://widnr.widen.net/s/fz29sg7r6j/2022_hunting_incident_synopsis
I guess they didn’t get the memo…
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/31/1152738265/covid-19-cause-of-death-children
It all depends on what political goal you are pursuing.
The actual question is, what’s wrong with a country that LIES about firearms being the leading cause of childhood death?
If you want to do something about unnecessary deaths, control the border and the flood of fentanyl into the country. More deaths from fentanyl that from guns, but you just keep that border open and keep that fentanyl flowing in.
If the number of guns was the real problem, we’d ALL be dead. In fact, especially under the crime-promoting Democrats, the more guns we have, the safer the citizens are.
The hottest scam going in America is the taxation.
Sorry, there’s no free lunch. Never has been.
Move to Russia. They have a nice 13% flat tax-–in addition to a 20% national sales tax, which effectively means a 33% tax for working people. Employers pay 30% Social Security tax on employee wages, plus a 20% corporate tax.
He’s getting a free lunch, for sure…well…after 10% off the top for the Big Guy.
Really no free lunch, how much income tax was there before 1918? Sure that was only going to be on rich people. Now every damn thing is taxed or double taxed. Pay sales tax then personal property tax then registration taxes on the car then gas tax to run it. Park it in you garage that has property tax.
Only 20 % corporate tax, how you bitched when the evil corporations taxes were cut to 21 %
Joey got the Social security income taxed.
You forgot to add the 30% employer-paid Social Security tax on each employee, which gives you a 50% corporate obligation. THEN the corporate owners have to pony up personal taxes on their corporate income.
Im sure the employees not needed to comply for regulations makes up for the percentages. Europe is much worse.
The one thing I’ve learned on FA over the years is never listen to greg concerning taxes.
He has no clue.
I wonder what country he really lives in.
The article I found said the IRS warrant did not have the 4473s forms listed so were seized illegally, the ATF involvement was a phone call from the owner asking about the 4473s and was initially told not to hand them over. They are suppose to keep them for 20 years, the took without warrant or cause 13 years of forms.
He can also preach about paying taxes while supporting a guy who dodged his and CERTAINLY hasn’t paid taxes on his influence peddling income.
Biden and many other politicians would disagree.
I paid for that.
It’s funny you think “keeping the money I worked for” is free lunch.
You sound like a Communist. You’re even telling me to move to Russia, the pinnacle of Communist living.
Trying to admit something to us?
This guy wasn’t impersonating an IRS agent, he was impersonating human being. This is what absolute power does: it corrupts. This is where the totalitarian police state leads: to petty punks exceeding their authority and power because they CAN.
How about impersonating a President? When will idiot Biden be held accountable for his corruption?
Biden was hired for the part by the same cabal of interests mentioned in the Time Magazine Article in February 2021https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/
Because they had a history from his working with bank and credit card industry… They knew he could be bought.
I want to wish all the real men here a Happy Fathers Day
