(TheRedWire.com) – It’s safe to say as federal agencies go, Americans aren’t fans of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In a 2021 Gallup poll, only 37% gave the tax agency a favorable approval rating. For decades, the IRS has built a reputation for harassing taxpayers through the audit process and even taking money that doesn’t belong to them. Now, it seems turnabout is fair play.
The US Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, or TIGTA, opened an audit against the powerful federal agency in 2021. The audit seeks to understand if the IRS created conflicts of interest with large and international companies and mishandled whistleblower allegations.
Eye-opening view: IRS Is Audited Over Its Safeguards Against Favored Treatment of Big Business. https://t.co/JwXG0PAX32
— Taxpayers Against Fraud (@fraudinamerica) March 4, 2022
TIGTA is a government oversight administration and watchdog, and it wants to know how the IRS handles conflicts of interests around the revolving door between the accounting world and the IRS. It appears numerous whistleblower cases died within the IRS, or the massive federal tax agency ignored them for years.
TIGTA says its audit will determine the adequacy of the agency’s processes and procedures and whether IRS agents ignore conflicts of interest by giving preferential treatment to big businesses and their representatives in tax compliance matters.
The watchdog also wants to know if the corporate world is willing to pay large sums of money to those who worked for the IRS, know the system, and have personal relationships inside the tax agency that can benefit companies.
Some claim former IRS agents hired by corporations help companies use complex tax-avoidance schemes the IRS finds challenging to spot without insider knowledge.
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