IRS chief orders security review as GOP targets agency with inflammatory rhetoric

The IRS is reviewing the security at all of its facilities after some Republicans charged that the agency would use a major boost in funding from Congress to target regular Americans, in some cases invoking the threat of agents using firearms.

IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig noted in a message to employees that there have been new threats aimed at the agency and its staff, along with “an abundance of misinformation and false social media postings.”

The comprehensive security review launched by Rettig will include an examination of how to bolster security and lighting at IRS offices, as well as increased collaboration with federal Homeland Security officials and local police.

“I will continue to advocate for your safety in every venue where I have an audience,” Rettig wrote in his message.

The letter was first reported by The Washington Post.

The head of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents thousands of IRS employees, requested the review in a letter to Rettig over the weekend, a spokesperson for the union said.

“Too many times in the past, we have seen anti-government, anti-worker statements fuel violent attacks on innocent federal employees,” wrote Tony Reardon, the NTEU president.

Republicans have taken a number of approaches to criticize the $80 billion influx of funding that Democrats gave to the IRS in the Inflation Reduction Act, including raising doubts about Democrats' assertions that those making under $400,000 a year aren’t at a higher risk of being audited.

They have also warned that the tax collector could hire tens of thousands of new employees over a decade with its new funding.

But some GOP officials have taken their comments further, increasing the alarm among IRS brass, agency employees and their advocates.

Top Republicans have said that the IRS’s longstanding criminal investigation division has millions of rounds of ammunition

Former Senate Finance Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wondered during a Fox News appearance this month whether an IRS “strike force” would ever be poised “to shoot some small business person in Iowa....”

Other Republican lawmakers have sought to tie the IRS’s weapons budget to the FBI raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida home.

Beyond routine enforcement of tax laws, the IRS also participates in investigations of drug trafficking and other crimes that may include widespread tax evasion and money laundering.