Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) ripped the Biden administration’s plan to hire 87,000 IRS agents by 2031 in a speech on Wednesday, calling it “a middle finger to the American public.”
Many of those new tax collectors, funded by $80 billion from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act will be bearing arms while they hunt for money. Those special agents, according to the agency’s job description, will “carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force, if necessary.”
“Why would they do that?” DeSantis snapped of the Biden IRS plan. “Because you’re not going to be able to contend with the audit. So they’re going to crush a lot of people by doing that.”
“And I think of all the things that have come out of Washington that have been outrageous, this has got to be pretty close to the top,” he charged. “And I think it was basically just a middle finger to the American public that this is what they think of you. All these problems we have to deal with, and they think the way is to do 87,000 IRS agents. There’s going to be more people in the IRS than in a lot of these other agencies combined now.”
“They’re not putting very much money down at the border; I can tell you that right now,” DeSantis commented. “But they want to be able to do it, unleash them on American taxpayers. So that’s wrong.”
“Fortunately, that’s one of the reasons we don’t have an income tax, because if you don’t have an income tax, you don’t empower revenue agents,” he pointed out of his home state. “Once you do that income tax, that gives them the ability to really go in and potentially target … And it’s going to be targeted at the people the government doesn’t like.”
In addition to carrying guns and badges, investigators in the IRS Criminal Investigation branch, who have carried firearms and used special equipment for years, will be outfitted with all the trappings of police officers. Other investigative equipment at their disposal includes fleet and surveillance vehicles, radio communication equipment, body armor, electronic surveillance equipment, audio and video equipment, cameras and lenses, night vision equipment, optical equipment, and something called “padded training suits.” The IRS bought $700,000 in ammunition earlier this year.
Nonpartisan watchdog Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that as much as 90% of the estimated $200 billion in additional funds the IRS will collect as a result of beefing up its ranks will come from small businesses.
Related: Guns, Body Armor, Spy Gear: Here’s What Biden’s Beefed-Up IRS Investigation Unit Will Pack