IRS Adds 700 Ways To Audit, So Don't Delete Emails Or Wipe Hard Drives

IRS is adding 700 audit and enforcement personnel to increase your chances of a tax audit. Some Republicans say this hiring news means the endless budget requests from IRS Commissioner Koskinen may have been overblown. Maybe IRS budget shortfalls were overstated, or some of those emails were lost? The Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), has come right out and asked where the IRS found the money for those new hires.

Not long ago, IRS Commissioner Koskinen complained that the IRS “will not be able to replace” as many as 1,800 enforcement officials due to budget cuts. A short time later, the Commissioner reported on the hires and the ramp up in enforcement. Rep. Chaffetz wrote that it sounded fishy:

Now, less than three months later, without that increase, you have announced plans to increase enforcement activities. The inescapable conclusion is that your testimony to Congress was inaccurate, reflecting either an attempt to exaggerate IRS’s budget needs or a management failure in understanding the needs of your organization.”

Make no mistake, the Chaffetz letter to the IRS Commissioner is firm. There was also the IRS Commissioner’s speech to the National Press Club March 24, 2016, which included stark budget numbers:

Our budget for this fiscal year is about $900 million below 2010. Since 70 percent of our budget is personnel, we have absorbed these cuts mostly by not replacing employees who leave for other jobs, or who retire, like Angelo or Bill. If it’s a critical position, we may shift another employee into that slot. But it’s still a net drop in the size of our workforce. As a result, we expect the IRS workforce to shrink by another 2,000 to 3,000 full-time employees this year. That will add up to about 17,000 full-time employees lost through attrition since 2010.”

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