“Is it true?” one of my friends messaged. “Is the IRS really raising an army?”

That gave me a start. An army? Honestly, I was just hoping the agency would start answering the phones again.

But like all rumors, this one had started with a grain of truth.

IRS Funding

The IRS has received a green light for additional funding: The Inflation Reduction Act—now signed into law—includes roughly $80 billion for the IRS to be phased in over 10 years. A Treasury Department report from May 2021 estimated that level of additional funding would allow the agency to hire roughly 87,000 new employees by 2031. New workers include those in many departments, such as customer service and IT, to be hired over the next decade.

It didn’t take long for that news to turn into a “new army of 87,000 IRS agents” following tweets such as this one from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Two days later, the rhetoric amped up with social media posts urging, “We don’t need 87,000 armed IRS agents” and others, including references to "$80B for armed IRS Agents.”

Tens of thousands of armed IRS agents? That was definitely a scary proposition. Only that also wasn’t true. As with the increased IRS funding, it started with a true story.

IRS Hiring

The IRS is hiring—you can read about their plans here. Even before the new law, the agency had been placing job ads. The ad that triggered the latest round of social media posts was a hiring announcement for an IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent....

Read Full Story: https://news.bloombergtax.com/tax-insights-and-commentary/irs-is-hiring-new-e...