The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is threatening to come after individuals or organizations who question Joe Biden or the federal government’s “ability to govern,” it has confirmed.
According to a report from independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, the IRS is planning to expand its investigative interests to those who threaten the federal government’s “ability to govern” or present a “threat to the public safety or national security interests of the United States.”
He wrote in his Substack:
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is positioned to do much more than just collect your taxes as it turns its attention to individuals who threaten the U.S. government’s “ability to govern,” a vague new criteria for criminal investigations, according to its own operating manual.
Buried in the fine print is the revelation that the IRS is pivoting away from its post-9/11 focus on financing of foreign terror groups like al Qaeda and criminal money laundering to a much broader and ill-defined “national security” threat. The shift, revealed in the latest versions of the voluminous Internal Revenue Manual, applies to IRS participation in dozens of federal government “national security” investigative task forces, which were previously referred to as “narcotics and terrorism” task forces until late last year.
Klippenstein goes on to make the case that such criteria is not typically within the investigative remit of a tax collecting agency:
Protecting stock markets and critical infrastructure, protecting the “ability to govern” — that is, the workings of United States officialdom– is hardly a mission historically associated with America’s tax collectors. Their inclusion as criteria to involve IRS special agents in federal investigations opens the door for overreach and abuse.
At a time when the IRS is subject to partisan political attack (the FY 2024 final budget reduced the $80 billion earmarked to the IRS by $20 billion), broadening the IRS mission does little to achieve what the agency says is its goal, which is forcing millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share.
Earlier this month, the IRS demanded a further $20 billion from Congress to further expand its operations.
According to IRS Commissioner, Daniel Werfel, the agency needs the money in order to fund technology upgrades and improve its customer service. He also confirmed plans to hire a further 14,000 employees over the next few years, with an estimated workforce of 102,500 by 2029.
