IRS Building

A screenshot of a job advertisement for the Criminal Investigation Special Agent employed with the IRS has made the rounds on social media, causing quite a stir among Americans. Paired with the rhetoric that the 87,000 new IRS employees to be hired, social media users are positing that the IRS is not only coming after the average American regarding taxes, but they are willing to utilize a firearm to enforce audits.

Such is life on social media.

Congress is preparing to finalize the Inflation Reduction Act this week; some are calling the legislation nothing more than a massive spending bill, while others are referring to IRA as a “climate bill.”

Millions of Americans are concerned – possibly due to what they’re reading on social media – that the Inflation Reduction Act will utilize the 87,000 new IRS agents hired to audit those who are considered low- or middle-income earners. Senator Joe Manchin told Harris Faulkner on her Faulkner Focus show on Fox News that the bill would not increase taxes on anyone making under $400,000. Several other Democrat lawmakers as well as President Biden has repeated the same.

At the same time, many GOP lawmakers and some economists say that the bill will increase taxes on people making less than $30,000 per year. Some have added that the IRS “is coming for” everyday Americans, rather than the 724 billionaires in the country.

The screenshot of the ad that circulated social media was temporarily removed on Wednesday, but This Nation researched the ad itself.

One can do a Google search for “Criminal Investigation Special Agents” and be directed to the USAJobs.gov website. There, one will find the full job announcement. This announcement does mention that candidates should be legally able to carry a firearm. The screenshot that circulated social media reads “carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force, if necessary.”

Fox Business says that the job posting link was “briefly deleted” on Wednesday, but was reposted after the news outlet contacted the agency for comment.

This writer found the key requirements to look somewhat different than the screenshot traversing social media. The job posting listed requirements such as completing training at a federal law enforcement training center in Georgia, passing a medical exam, and even needing to undergo an audit of at least two years’ worth of tax returns.

An IRS spokesperson told Fox Business: The IRS Criminal Investigation special agent job announcement continues to be open on USAJobs and has not/was not taken down. USAJobs is where these positions are posted and where applicants are referred to go in order to apply.”

This same website is what was found when the author researched for this writing.

The IRS spokesperson added that the job had been posted in February of this year and would remain posted until the end of the year.

The IRS is severely understaffed. Many Americans claim they have not received a refund from the 2020 tax year, and getting a live person on the phone at the IRS is nearly impossible, according to some social media users.

One reason that Americans seem nervous about the passage of this part of the Inflation Reduction Act is the idea that projected revenue from investing billions of dollars in the IRS is approximately $124 billion over a ten-year period. An analysis by House Republicans published this week holds that “individuals with an annual income of $75,000 or less would be subject to 710,863 additional IRS audits, while those making over $1 million each year would be subject to 52,295 more audits. The analysis says that the the IRS would carry out 1.2 million additional audits each year of citizens’ tax returns.

The analysis says that those making between $75,000 and $200,000 would be subject to 236,685 more audits than current numbers.

The IRS Commissioner, Charles Rettig, who has beseeched Congress multiple times for more money for his agency, said earlier this week: “audit rates will not increase relative to recent years.”