IRS job posting for Criminal Investigation agent: 'Be willing to use deadly force, if necessary'

Amid spreading alarm about the Internal Revenue Service stockpiling ammunition and Senate Democrats' passge on Sunday of a spending bill that would fund the hiring of 87,000 new IRS agents, the tax collection agency is listing a job opening for a Criminal Investigation Special Agent who must must "be willing to use deadly force, if necessary." 

According to the IRS job listing, one of the "Key Requirements" for the job is: "Be legally allowed to carry a firearm."

"Major Duties" of the special agent include: "Carry a firearm and be willing to use deadly force, if necessary."

Other duties include:

• "Maintain a level of fitness necessary to effectively respond to life-threatening situations on the job."
• "Be willing and able to participate in arrests, execution of search warrants, and other dangerous assignments."

Wayback Machine screenshots show that this job posting has included these requirements and duties since January of this year. However, the earliest screenshot of the webpage on Oct. 1, 2016, listed "use of firearms" as a duty for the position. That duty was on the webpage until at least April 2020, and was changed sometime between then and September that year, when the firearm duty was no longer listed.

The job posting gained attention via a tweet posted by Ford Fischer, the editor-in-chief of News2Share. Fischer noted that the listing links to the IRS Criminal Investigation branch's 2021 annual report, which mentions that special agent attachés are stationed in 11 foreign countries and agents may also work in the Cyber Crime Unit.

The IRS has been in the spotlight recently following Senate Democrats' passage on a party line vote of the "Inflation Reduction Act of 2022," which includes funding for the hiring of 87,000 new tax-enforcement agents.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted that he had introduced an amendment to strike that provision from the bill, but it was ultimately voted down.

"Democrats want to make the IRS larger than the Pentagon, the State Department, the FBI, and the Border Patrol combined," Cruz tweeted. "That's a terrible idea. We should abolish the IRS!"

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) introduced a bill last month entitled "Disarm the IRS Act," which would ban the agency from purchasing ammunition. The agency has already stockpiled more than 5 million rounds.

The IRS has purchased $725,000 worth of ammunition this year alone, according to Gaetz. "I'm not against stockpiling ammunition, but you shouldn't have to be a D.C. accountant to do it; you ought to be a mechanic in Pensacola," he told Fox News.

The Biden administration wants to "disarm Americans, open the border, empty the prisons" and "still collect your taxes" with $725,000 worth of ammunition to do it, Gaetz said.

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) told "Just the News, Not Noise" on Monday night that she guesses the IRS needs ammunition "to go in and do raids on top of FBI claims and go after people who they claim are dangerous and have to pay their taxes."

Recalling IRS official Lois Lerner's targeting of conservative groups for audits under the Obama administration, Tenney said, "[W]e should all be concerned that our IRS is armed because I look at them as a modern day militia now because they are partisan, they are selectively enforcing against typically partisan targets, people they're running against."

The IRS didn't immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Wednesday evening after Just the News reached them by phone.