New Report Details Alarming IRS Civil Liberties Abuses

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an interim staff report titled, “Fighting the Weaponization of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS): The End of Abusive Unannounced Field Visits.”
 
The report reveals how the IRS committed alarming civil liberties abuses, including an unannounced, unprompted field visit to the home of journalist Matt Taibbi on the very day he testified before Congress about government censorship. It outlines how the IRS initiated a case against Matt Taibbi on Christmas Eve—a Saturday—just three weeks after he published the first installment of the Twitter Files. The report further details a disturbing incident in which an IRS agent, using a false name and deceptive pretenses, entered an Ohio taxpayer’s home to harass and intimidate the taxpayer without prior notice or just cause.

After intense scrutiny by the Committee and Select Subcommittee, the IRS revoked its policy of unannounced field visits, ending a decades-long practice the agency had been exploiting, and one that eroded trust among the American public.

The interim report also highlights the IRS’s extensive history of other wrongdoing, including its targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. In light of the Democrats’ allocation of nearly $80 billion in new funding to the IRS in the 117th Congress, the report underscores the Committee’s and Select Subcommittee’s commitment to continuing the investigation into the IRS’s practices, aiming to safeguard the American people from any future abuse of its power.
 
Read the full interim staff report here.

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