US Lawmaker Wants Answers as ‘Militarized’ IRS Gets $10 Mln in Guns, Ammo and Gear

The Internal Revenue Service received a $80 billion boost in funding last year as part of the $1.2 trillion Inflation Reduction Act, and announced plans to hire tens of thousands of agents and spend billions of dollars on “enforcement.” The move comes amid decades-old concerns about the growing militarization of law enforcement in the US.

A US lawmaker has sounded the alarm about the millions of dollars’ worth of weapons and tactical equipment purchased by the IRS in recent years, and has asked the agency to account for the purchases.

“While I recognize the Criminal Investigation division has a law enforcement role, recent reports have indicated that the IRS has made substantial purchases of weaponry and tactical gear. As a civilian agency whose stated mission is to ‘provide America’s taxpayers top-quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities and enforce the law with integrity and fairness to all’, the increasing militarization of the IRS is of growing concern,” Representative Stephanie Bice wrote in an open letter to IRS commissioner Daniel Werfel.

Citing a recent watchdog report that the agency spent nearly $10 million on weapons, ammunition and gear including tactical lighting, optical sights and ballistic helmets since 2020, Bice asked the IRS chief to provide more information on the “quantity and type” of the weapons, ammunition, explosive devices, armored vehicles, drones, tear gas and other equipment in the agency’s possession.

“It is important for Congress to conduct thorough oversight of IRS,” Bice stressed.

Bice, a Republican from Oklahoma, is a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, the House Budget Committee, and the Committee on House Administration. The lawmaker expects a reply back from Werfel within five business days.

In May, OpenTheBooks, a Chicago-based non-profit focused on transparency in government spending, published a report which found that the IRS spent some $474,000 on Smith & Wesson rifles, $463,000 on Beretta 1301 tactical shotguns, over $2.3 million on ammunition, $243,000 on body armor and $1.2 million on ballistic shields between 2020 and 2021. Before the purchase, the agency already had some 4,500 guns and 5 million rounds of ammunition at its disposal.

The IRS’s Criminal Investigation division is tasked with investigating serious financial crimes, including money laundering, terrorist financing and criminal identity theft.

The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act last year, which resulted in tens of billions of dollars in new funding for the agency and led to the hiring of tens of thousands more revenue agents, prompted renewed concerns among some Republican lawmakers and many ordinary Americans about the potential use of the IRS to shake down the middle class and the poor using deadly force on less serious tax-related offenses.

Concerns over the “militarization” of law enforcement is a longtime problem in the US, with many police forces across the country equipped with military-style helmets and body armor, armed with assault rifles and machine guns, and riding around in mine-resistant armored vehicles.