IRS takes steps to protect worker identities in effort to deter personal threats – Winnipeg Free Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an effort to deter threats directed at IRS employees, the agency said Thursday it will begin limiting personally identifiable information from workers in communications with taxpayers.

The change starts next month.

The Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration said in a report this week that he was “concerned that maliciously motivated taxpayers and anti-tax or anti-government groups may use the Internet or social media to track and identify IRS employees, your families. , their homes and personal information to threaten, intimidate or track them down for physical violence.”

The IRS said it will remove the workers’ names from the communications, leaving their last names and their respective titles of Mr., Mrs. or a gender-neutral title. Phone numbers will continue to be included in communications.

The decision comes as the agency has received increased attention after the climate, health care and tax legislation signed into law by President Joe Biden last year included $80 billion in funding for tax collection efforts. taxes.

Since then, misinformation has spread online, including by Republican lawmakers, that 87,000 armed officers authorized to use deadly force were going to crack down on taxpayers of all income levels.

In August, IRS leadership announced it would conduct a comprehensive security review at its 600 facilities across the country, after conspiracy theories linked increased threats to workers.

“For me this is personal. I will continue to do everything possible to dispel any lingering misperceptions about our work,” then-Commissioner Chuck Rettig said in a letter to workers.

New IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel said last month that no hiring increase is expected for the criminal investigation unit, which makes up 3% of the agency’s workforce and employed approximately 2,077 special agents as of last year. 2022 budget, according to the IRS annual report.

Under the IRS Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, contact information for IRS employees must be included in manually generated correspondence. That includes the worker’s name and phone number.

Kenneth Corbin, commissioner of the IRS wage and investment division, said in a letter to the inspector general’s office that “we will take steps to limit the amount of our employees’ personally identifiable information provided in manually generated correspondence while continuing to comply “with the law.