Continuing Threats Against The IRS

[The Observer]

WASHINGTON POST.COM
December 8, 2010

Report Reveals Threats against IRS Workers
By Ed OKeefe

Internal Revenue Service employees and their families are still facing threats from angry taxpayers in the wake of A deadly plane crash early this year at agency offices in Texas.
The nation's slow economic recovery and lingering frustrations with the federal government inspire many of the threats, according to watchdogs with the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which tracks IRS operations and released updated figures this week.
The report doesn't detail any actual attacks against workers but recounts several credible threats.

A North Carolina man is serving 46 months in prison and three years of supervised release for threatening to assault an IRS special agent. The man, sentenced in May, had contacted the investigator by phone in April 2009 and repeatedly said, "I'm gonna off you," the report said. The man also contacted the agent's wife, telling her, "Goodbye, you're not going to see me again, and you will be reading about me in the papers."

A California man was convicted of making a bomb threat against the IRS. The man, who had a history of threatening violence against agency employees, called in a bomb threat against IRS offices in Fresno. Local police and agency security officers did not find a bomb after searching the building. The man is serving five years of probation and faces more than $830 in fines, according to the report.

In a separate California case from Aug. 2009, a man was charged with making a bomb threat after he handed an IRS employee a note that read, "BOMB BAG" and then patted his backpack. Special agents responded when the IRS worker, who had been assisting the man before the threat, activated a panic alarm. Police arrested the man and found no bomb in his backpack, the report said.

A Florida woman was charged in May for allegedly making more than five years' worth of harassing phone calls to IRS employees. She phoned one IRS worker seven times, and in one call threatened to kill the worker and the worker's family, the report said.
TIGTA has handled more than 1,200 cases of threats or assaults against IRS workers in the last nine years, resulting in more than 167 indictments and more than 200 convictions, a spokesman said.

Last February a man crashed a small plane into IRS offices in Austin, killing an agency employee and the pilot. In his suicide note, the pilot recounted more than two decades of grievances against the IRS.

[The Observer]

St. Louis Globe-Democrat
December 8, 2010

St. Louis Man Indicted for Threatening IRS Facility

The United States Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday that Aaron Johnson, 20, of St. Louis City was indicted by a federal grand jury for threatening to blow up an IRS facility in St. Louis and then lying to the investigators looking into the threat.

The indictment alleges that Johnson called an IRS facility on South Grand in the City of St. Louis on April 14, 2010. As Treasury agents investigated the threat in the weeks following, Johnson falsely implicated two other men before finally admitting to making the threat himself months later.

Johnson is charged with the threatened use of explosives on a building and two counts of making a false statement to federal agents.

If convicted, each count is carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and/or a fine of $250,000.

[Thule]

Local police and agency security officers did not find a bomb after searching the building. The man is serving five years of probation and faces more than $830 in fines, according to the report.

Not much of a fine for calling in bomb threats. I assume the Post forgot a couple of digits.

[Gregg]

A California man was convicted of making a bomb threat against the IRS.


...snip....

The man is serving five years of probation and faces more than $830 in fines, according to the report.

Let me get this straight, it's more serious to file a 'CTC educated return ($5,000 penalty) than it is to threaten to (but not actually) bomb the IRS?

(of course, Pete has done both!)

[LPC]

TIGTA has handled more than 1,200 cases of threats or assaults against IRS workers in the last nine years, resulting in more than 167 indictments and more than 200 convictions, a spokesman said.

It would be interesting to compare those numbers with the number of successful complaints of unlawful collection activity. It's possible that the IRS gets more threats of violence than it makes wrongful collection actions.