A recent federal budget created funding for 87,000 IRS employees over the next 10 years. Unfortunately, there are news reports and in speeches by elected officials, that the IRS is hiring 87,000 armed agents. This is far from the truth. But there is some truth that IRS does have armed agents; the IRS has a Criminal Investigation Division of approximately 2,100 special agents who have arrest powers and carry weapons. They are an elite unit of financial investigators that can travel the world investigating major financial crimes. With the powers of arrest and executing search/seizure warrants, these weapons are necessary to protect themselves and others during their high risk investigations.
In this episode, I discuss the reason for these special agents, why there are vital to law enforcement, and why they carry weapons to investigate tax and other financial crimes.