IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel on Thursday provided details about plans to hire armed agents in the agency’s criminal investigations division, amid Republican concerns about a proliferation of gun-toting tax enforcers.
Werfel said in a call with reporters that the share of staff working in the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) unit would not climb above the current level of around 2.6 percent of the IRS’s overall workforce.
There are “no plans to increase” the hiring rate at the IRS-CI unit, Werfel said on the call. “That will stay at its current rate.”
The IRS-CI examines potential criminal activity related to tax crimes and makes recommendations for prosecution to the tax division of the Department of Justice. Agents at the criminal investigations division are authorized to carry guns and use lethal force….