Following Senator Scott Fight to End Taxpayer Harassment, IRS Does Away With Unannounced Home Visits

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), member of the Senate Finance Committee, issued the following statement after the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced it would end the practice of unannounced visits to taxpayers’ homes: 

“Finally, the IRS has heeded Republicans’ calls to end its practice of unannounced, threatening visits to the homes of South Carolinians and taxpayers around the country,” said Senator Scott. “I’m proud to have successfully fought to provide meaningful protections for Americans and make strides in ending the IRS’ harassment of hard-working people.”

Last week, Senator Scott joined Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, and his Senate colleagues in requesting information from the IRS and calling for an investigation from the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) on numerous serious reports of IRS employee misconduct. 

The move to hold the IRS accountable came as multiple outlets reported the IRS’ troubling pattern of harassing taxpayers and violating their rights during heavy-handed visits to private homes and businesses.

BACKGROUND  

Senator Scott’s work to reign in the IRS and protect American taxpayers includes the following:

• Raising concerns with the IRS’ intrusive identity verification measures which would violate affect private taxpayer information and civil liberties.
• Writing a letter to IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig raising concerns and questions about the IRS’s destruction of an estimated 30 million paper-filed documents in March 2021 reportedly due to a backlog in processing paper documents.
• Offering a motion to amend the Democrats’ plan to put $45 billion toward hiring thousands of new agents to target hardworking Americans and instead redirect the funds to parents, empowering them to get their children back on track after months — and in some cases, years — of learning loss caused by school closures.  
• Pushing a bill to prevent the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from using the Democrats’ massive, $80 billion infusion of taxpayer dollars to squeeze more revenue out of Americans earning less than $400,000 per year.
• Supporting the IRS Funding Accountability Act. The legislation responds to the Democrats’ use of the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA) to infuse the IRS with $80 billion of new funding without any oversight measures to prevent waste, protect taxpayer rights, or measure improvements of service.
• Introducing the IRS Accountability and Taxpayer Protection Act to prohibit the IRS from using penalties as a bargaining chip in reaching resolutions more favorable to the agency at the expense of hardworking Americans.