IRS launches safety review after right-wing threats [View all]
Source: Washington Post
The Internal Revenue Service will launch a full security review of its facilities nationwide, Commissioner Charles Rettig announced Tuesday, as congressional Republicans and far-right extremists are lashing out at the agency and the new funding it is slated to receive in a massive spending law. “We see what’s out there in terms of social media. Our workforce is concerned about their safety,” Rettig told The Washington Post in an interview Tuesday. “The comments being made are extremely disrespectful to the agency, to the employees and to the country.”
In a letter to employees sent Wednesday, he wrote that the agency would conduct risk assessments for each of the IRS’s 600 facilities, and evaluate whether to increase security patrols along building exteriors, boost designations for restricted areas, examine security around entrances and assess exterior lighting. It will be the agency’s first such review since the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, which killed 168 people.
“For me this is personal,” Rettig wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Post. “I’ll continue to make every effort to dispel any lingering misperceptions about our work. And I will continue to advocate for your safety in every venue where I have an audience. You go above and beyond every single day, and I am honored to work with each of you.”
The IRS is set to receive $80 billion in fresh funding over 10 years as part of President Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act. The money is designed to help the agency increase scrutiny of tax cheats and increase enforcement on high-income earners and major corporations, including a large hiring push to help the IRS make up for more than a decade of underfunding.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/08/23/irs-safety-republicans/
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